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Towards more professionalism in governance

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Written By murali772 - 1 June, 2011

Bangalore egovernance governance BBMP property taxes Media Reports efficiency outsourcing

While the number of persons paying online may have doubled this year - from 32,000 to 71,000 - many more may have logged on, and then logged off in frustration. Property owners in several parts of the city were in for a shock, when the computer refused to accept their payment, saying they had not paid the previous year’s tax. “We have bonafide receipts of taxes paid last year. How can the system say we have not paid? Isn’t it ridiculous that we now have to go to the BBMP office? What’s the point making it online if the taxpayer has to trek to the centre?” asked Sumithra Raghavan. The reasons are not too far to seek. The ground staff at work have not updated their previous tax data in the database. Helpless, these taxpayers returned to the queue at the BBMP help centres. Some others could not take printouts of their tax paid receipts.

BBMP officials also admit to the folly. “Yes, it’s unfortunate that we have had many such complaints this time, mainly from the newly-added areas. Data updation for 2009-10 and 2010-11 is still in progress and will take another 15 days to complete. But thereafter, there should be no problems for people to switch to the online mode,’’ BBMP deputy commissioner (revenue) I Ramakant told TOI.

For the full report in the ToI, click here.
   
As per the report, only Rs 37.52 cr, out of the Rs 520.36 cr received so far, was paid online, accounting for a miniscule 7.2% for supposedly tech savvy Benagaluru. This includes my contribution too.

As a blogger from the time blogging started, I have generally managed to keep myself abreast of the tech upgrades, though, in my late middle age ( I am trying to avoid the word 'old'), it's not been as easy, as say for my son. But, I have generally been making all mine and my immediate family's travel bookings, whether by air, rail or bus; banking operations; insurance policy renewals; credit card payments; etc, all from home, through the net, saving me a considerable amount of time, effort, and travel. I have generally found the sites user friendly, and once you have navigated through the process the first time, it becomes kind of child's play thereafter.

BBMP is about the exception. If I have managed to make online payment of my property taxes over the years, it required my "cracking" of the process each time, through painstaking effort, apart from some bit of luck.

The difference plainly is one of professionalism in the approach. It's like when a person wants to build his house. Now, any body can build it all on his own, and in the process, save himself the 5% odd fee that the architect may charge, though, at the end of it all, he may land up paying 20% more than what he would have, if he had engaged an architect. This is apart from the question of liveability of the house.

BBMP's approach is very much like the person who believes in doing it all by himself, even in today's world, which has become a lot more professionalised, quite in tune with the day's demands. Their team consists largely of just one professional, and the rest all part timers, if I understood it correctly. When some of us met him, quite like the person who has chosen to build his house himself, this professional too was eloquent about how, if the job had been outsourced to say a TCS, it would have cost the BBMP some tens of crores, as compared to the few lakhs he and his team is presently costing the BBMP. The point he misses is that, if indeed a TCS had been engaged, they would have brought in a lot more value additions to the whole exercise, making for a far more dynamic and buoyant tax collection mechanism. This is apart from the huge savings in manhours for the BBMP corresponding to the staff deployed in the physical collection exercise, assuming that they have something more productive to do, which of couse is a big question mark.

It all again boils down to professionalisation through outsourcing, simultaneous down-sizing, payment of better than market salaries for the remaining staff, and making all of them more accountable. Readers of this blog may want to read this also.

Muralidhar Rao

COMMENTS

Went off without a hitch for

idontspam - 29 April, 2015 - 05:18

Went off without a hitch for me... everything was filled in just had to choose the ward and did netbanking payment. 5 minutes!

exasperating - BBMP's net property tax payment experience

murali772 - 26 April, 2015 - 07:03

From 1st April, when BBMP's property tax collection was set in motion, I had been mentally girdling myself up to undertake the task of making the payment on the net, the past experiences having been not too happy, to say the least. Meanwhile, yesterday, there was the following exchange between members of a "whatApp" group (of which I am a member), on the subject:
 
F1: Has anyone succeeded in paying property tax using the "time saving" online portal? I came tantalizingly close once this morning after over a dozen attempts but fell inches short of the finish line.
 
Me: I have been gathering courage from the beginning of the month to attempt it. It took me about ten attempts to crack it the last time. Will give it a shot today.
 
F2: I am going to bite the bullet this week. I'll try some unearthly hour and hope they don't switch off the server with the lights and fans when they go home.
 
F1: Finally task accomplished! Am giving myself the rest of the afternoon off to celebrate. The key to cracking this is to face East, stand on one leg, and chant Lakshminrayana 1008 times.
 
F3: I take the easy way out and send my driver to the tax counter, pay the guy there Rs 100/- to fill the forms, and the job is done. 
 
All of it didn't help in the least to buttress my resolve to take up the task. All the same, since the last date was approaching fast, I said a quick prayer and got onto the site. Actually, mine is very straight-forward case, there being no changes whatsoever from the previous year. But, when I tried entering my new PID, it refused to open, even after repeat attempts. This was of course on top of the site just hanging, at various stages of my attempts, with all kinds of vague messages coming on as if to explain the hanging. Experience over the years told me not to give up so easily. I then tried the old PID, and voila, the form opened out, with everything filled out, and, since there were no changes to be incorporated, I scrolled straight down to make the payment. 
 
But, here arose the fresh problem, which was not there last year (or before that). Payments could be effected through Credit/ debit cards of only IDBI, Corporation Bank, and IndusInd Bank, and net-banking option was available only through ICICI, IndusInd, Axis, and HDFC banks. As such, if you didn't have one of these tie-ups, there didn't seem to be any way of making the payment. Now, since I bank with Corporation bank, I thought I was in luck, and went ahead to make the payment. But, even with repeat attempts, all I kept getting was the message "please wait", and the site going dead thereafter.
 
Now, alongside InduInd bank's name, there appeared a link supposedly to some 33 other banks. But, clicking on the same took you to list of the names of the banks, but with no obvious indications as to what to do with the list. Perhaps, if you read the verbose fine print, that's there all over the forms as well as the site, perhaps the directions are there somewhere. But, finding that will call for a level of patience few human beings are generally capable of. Is it any surprise then that my friend, F3, chooses the easy way out? 
 
And, the BBMP has the gall to term it "time saving". In fact, I am inclined to believe that it's deliberately retained this way so that a majority of the people, busy as there with their everyday life's activities (like my friend, F3), will choose the easier way out, this in turn fattening the pockets of the neta-babu combo. The same people, when it comes to booking tickets for a movie/ show, bus/ rail/ air/ taxi travel, will today be doing it all on the net, and with finesse, the difference plainly being the user-friendliness, which term is apparently unknown to BBMP.
 
And, to add insult to the injury, today I get a message from BX-BBMPAD reading " Dear Bengalurians - Kindly avail 5% rebate on Property Tax for 2015-16 by paying before 30th April, 2015. It can be paid online using credit or debit cards."
 
Finally, this morning, when my daughter, who has an account with HDFC bank, came over, I sought her help to make the payment, ending my 5 + 2 hours ordeal spread over two days (incidentally, dummy runs through options other than that of HDFC too seemed dead-ended, as with Corporation Bank), which, with any other site managed by professionals, shouldn't have taken more than 5 minutes. I thereafter re-imbursed the amount to my daughter, through the net, in less than a minute.
 
Essentially, what is needed is professionalism. And, government and the word are antonymous, whether it's a matter of tax collection, power supply, water supply, bus services, what have you. The answer plainly lies in outsourcing all of these functions to professionals (with credibility, and not some Katta Subramanya Naidu nephew types), and concentrating just on governance. 
 

Property Tax on line payment

Promod Kapur - 26 April, 2015 - 07:41

Murli, you are partly right. I tried but not having the connrcterd bank, I downloaded the return, made a cheque and paid at the ward office. I was out within 2 minutes - done and sealed. The saving really is in the fact that your return is automnatically created and one does not have to fill every column manually. But I hope that next time around they will facilitate payment through all banks through their credit/derbit cards.

Thankfully, I did not have to spend as much time as you had to, but appreciate that yours must definitely be a frustrating and annoying experience.

outsourcing to professional agencies clearly the way forward

murali772 - 11 April, 2015 - 13:08

Councillors cutting across party lines on Thursday opposed the idea of outsourcing tax collection to private agencies. A proposal to hire expert tax valuators was tabled for approval before the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike council. As per the proposal, tax valuators will verify a property’s built-up area and the amount to be paid. This will prevent misuse of the self-assessment scheme and up to 20 per cent of the tax collected after assessment will be paid to the valuators, the proposal said. - - - Chamarajpet councillor B K Ganesh said two major duties of the civic body are keeping the city clean and collecting property taxes. “We have outsourced cleaning works. If we outsource tax collection as well, why do we need BBMP employees?”
 
Following the negative response from council members, BBMP Commissioner M Lakshminarayana said tax valuators would not collect money and would just assess property. “They will assess properties that are more than 50x80 feet. This will not be a burden to the BBMP. Recently, we paid `75 lakh to a private firm to assess an IT company. If we had a company on hire, we would not have had to pay so much.” However, the councillors were not moved and the proposal was dropped.
 
For the full text of the report in the New Indian Express, click here. 
 
Quite as the Commissioner has pointed out, if the services of a professional company were to be hired, they will help plug all the loop-holes, make the processing easier for the tax payers, and the collection would multiply. Simultaneously, if the staff made redundant by the exercise, were given the golden hand-shake, the overall benefit will be even higher.
 
The answer, to the point raised by Chamarajpet councillor B K Ganesh, needs to be stated very clearly that indeed BBMP doesn't need to be employing as many people as it is currently doing. Outsourcing to professional agencies is very clearly the way forward - not just for BBMP; but for the entire government (check the debate here too). 
 
Here, however, only a half-hearted attempt appears to have been made by the Commissioner. 
 

Issue with PID /App Nos.?

Naveen - 26 April, 2015 - 08:23

I have been paying property tax online for my house for the past 5-6 years without a hitch using Canara bank credit or debit cards. However, I have been facing problems wrt online payment for apartment.

I was told that once new PID Nos. have been allotted, the problem would be solved & to use 2012-13 application no. till then. When I tried to extract property details with 2012-13 application no., it says "No record", hence paid at the domlur BBMP revenue office.

The payment portal needs improvement, no doubt.

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