THEY ALWAYS SAY: “THERE IS NO MONEY FOR CITY IMPROVEMENT”

 Dr. Renuka Viswanathan, former Secretary to Govt of  India in Cabinet Secretariat

          We need many things to make Bengaluru better, roads without potholes, drains that don’t overflow, pavements, water connections, well-lit streets, clean lakes, sewage plants, parks and parking spaces.  We ask for them and get only one reply from BBMP and our light and water management agencies like BESCOM and BWSSB:

 “THERE IS NO MONEY’’.

If we persist, we are asked to choose.  Give up parks for roads, drains for lakes.  But, we need them all NOW.  These are critical things which cannot be postponed. 

          What are the real facts?  When we ask for figures, we get no immediate replies, even when we have a right to that information.  We wait for long periods and are often not provided with answers.  We cannot find out whether a public work has been planned, has started or is going to be started, how long it will take, who is doing it at what cost and when we can expect to see it finished.  The budget has some numbers which cannot be connected with what we see around us.  Hidden somewhere in its columns, there is also some money given to our ward every year.  But, we are not told about it or asked how it should be spent.

          Instead of believing BBMP, let us get answers from what we notice in our lives and localities.  I live in Belandur, which has certainly been growing very very fast.  I settled here ten years back.  Every day, the streets around me are changing rapidly.  Village-like small houses have become large apartments almost overnight.  Little shops changed to posh businesses. There are more householders, more workers, more cars, more garbage, more traffic, more needs for improvement.  Many demands for new light, water and sewage connections.  We definitely need MORE money just to manage what we have.  But, BBMP is only spending the same amount on its residents today as it did five years back.  Around Rs. 10000 crores.  And it says:  We have no money to satisfy all that our people need today.  And certainly, nothing for city improvement. 

          I would have thought that more money can be collected in a growing city, from new and old businesses and houses.  Growth is a two-way street:  It makes new spending demands, but it also gives us new opportunities to raise funds.  The unsolved mystery in Bengaluru is this: 

Why is BBMP collecting exactly the same amount of tax from the growing city year after year?!

          BBMP can tax advertisements, give licences to shops and businesses, rent out its buildings. And collect property tax from houses so that there is money to improve the city.  This is what BBMP has been doing with its different powers: It avoided making sensible decisions on what kinds of hoardings can be put up in the city.  It didn’t collect money from the large, ugly pictures of strange faces that we were all forced to look at for years.  And now that matter has gone to the court and the advertisement tax is almost dead.  Many shops and businesses are not licensed, which means they are hardly inspected and of course pay nothing for city services.  We all know why and how that happens. 

          So, the city budget is practically standing on one leg: the property tax that we all pay when we own a house or business in Bengaluru.  The tax was increased five years back in 2015 but, for some strange reason, tax collections are hardly increasing.  Certainly not in proportion to the increase in tax potential.  And, every day, BBMP threatens us:  You will have to pay more as tax for the same (older) building, just to somehow keep the city running.    

          I refuse to believe the BBMP story.  I will notice the evidence of my eyes and trust my own experience.  The city is growing. There is a lot of tax money out there which BBMP can collect but doesn’t.  There are several very easy ways of collecting just this one tax, property tax, to raise money to meet all the needs of the public today in Bengaluru.  Without increasing what we all have to pay.  This is my narrative.  These are my solutions. Will BBMP accept them?

-Link every building construction permission, building completion and occupancy certificate given by BBMP and BDA with the property tax register so that every occupied house and business pays tax from the day of occupation.

-Welcome new residents before they occupy their buildings so that they get khatas online automatically. For this, of course, BBMP must displace the army of agents that get khatas for apartment owners as a matter of business today.  It must set up good software links. It must clean up its offices and make its officials friendly, helpful and, above all, honest.

-Network with building associations to help builders, buyers and tenants to get khatas and BBMP documents instantaneously and share information.

-Check every new and additional power and light connection given by BESCOM and BWSSB with the BBMP property tax register to find the occupants who don’t pay property tax so that they can be helped to get on the register.

-Honest taxpayers will breathe a sigh of relief if BBMP helps instead of hindering them.  As for less honest persons, we don’t need to harass everybody to find those who have made false self-assessment declarations. Some taxpayers can be picked at random for verification every year.  Just as the income tax authorities do on sample basis.  And BBMP can also do some counter-verifications of its own.

-For example, check why different identical houses in one apartment or businesses in one area pay very different amounts of property tax.  BBMP can then set right the anomalies.

          Can BBMP get much money from just these simple measures?  Urban experts believe that they can.  In 2017 itself, the Economic Survey of the Central government pointed out that Bengaluru can increase tax revenue four to five times by more efficient property tax collection. A think tank called The Indian Centre for Social Transformation has said the same thing to the Fourth State Finance Commission.  That means that right now, Bengaluru could at least double its present budget for the city!  Without increasing any tax rate! 

          Why is BBMP not doing this?  The residents of the city know and guess why.  They should now find ways to get the kind of civic body they deserve.  One that will do its duty towards citizens.  Raise funds to keep the city running.  And use the money for all city improvements, without choosing among them or sacrificing any of their needs.  In my next blog, let us plan how we should improve the city, when this bonanza that we deserve, at least another Rs. 10000 crores of property tax money, is collected by BBMP to spend on us taxpayers.

           Meanwhile, let me leave you with one sobering piece of information.  We think that all the property tax we have paid to BBMP has gone to its accounts.  No, sadly, that has not happened.  Auditors have found that there are almost a thousand BBMP bank accounts all over the city.  Many of them have been opened without legal authority.  BBMP has not yet closed them and withdrawn our money into its own ledgers.  Right now, then, some of the property tax earlier paid by us is still in illegal bank accounts and is not available to be spent for our benefit.  And, instead of getting back the money parked in such places, BBMP is turning around and asking honest taxpayers to once again dip into their pockets so that it can repeat the same process.  Should we allow this to happen?