The civic tax assessment and collection department began distribution of property tax bills for 2009-10 on Monday to enable early payment of taxes, which will help citizen's get a 10 per cent rebate.

Last year, the state government had passed a long-pending proposal by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to grant 10 per cent rebate on property tax to citizens who pay their bills before May 31.

But with the election code of conduct (COC) in force, the department has referred the issue to the state election commission, seeking guidance on whether the proposal can be implemented with the COC in place.

A senior PMC official said that citizens can avail of the rebate in the current year itself if the election commission gives a green signal. However, if the election commission does not give a go-ahead, property holders will be charged an adjusted amount, after deducting the rebate, in future bills if they make the payments before May 31, 2009.

Meanwhile, speaking to mediapersons, head of the department Vilas Kanade said that citizens will now be able to get information about their property tax through short messaging service (SMS).

"We have started with an SMS facility for the citizens to get information about property taxes. Citizens can type egov pmcpt' with their property tax number and send it to 54646. The sender will get details of his taxes within 30 seconds of sending the SMS," Kanade said.

He pointed out that the department has also started other facilities to register citizens' complaints in an easy way. "The property tax bill, which has an attached receipt copy for office use, has a list of oft-faced problems on its reverse side. A property holder can tick on any of the given problems faced by him and we will revert for grievance redressal," Kanade said.

Kanade pointed out that this years' property tax collection had touched the Rs 343 crore mark by March 23 as a large number of new properties were assessed.

"The total number of properties as on March 31, 2008 were 5.98 lakh, in addition to this 45,000 more properties were assessed this year," Kanade said.