MCD starts distribution of property cards

After a delay of a decade, a plan conceptualised by the unified Municipal Corpor-ation of Delhi (MCD) to give each property in the city a unique property identification number has been finally launched by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) in its jurisdiction on Friday.

The civic body has started issuing unique property identity cards (UPIC) to property tax-payers in its area. The initial plan was conceptualised in 2006-07, but did not take off due to different reasons. SDMC mayor Subhash Arya told this newspaper that it took almost a decade to launch the scheme but it’s never too late to start an initiative which benefits the common man. “By the unique code system, it will be easy to know what property comes under which zone. In the beginning, the unique code will be given to those properties which are in the property tax frame,” Mr Arya said.

As per data available, there are around 16 lakh properties in SDMC’s ambit but the civic body is getting property tax only from four lakh properties at present. Sources said that the unique property code system will bring all properties under the tax net. “In the first phase, by the end of the current fin-ancial year, existing property tax-payers will get UPIC. Later on, in the second phase, all the remaining properties will be iss-ued UPIC,” said Mr Arya.

SDMC Leader of the House Ashish Sood said that in addition to this, the civic body will also establish a help desk which will give information regarding the new system.

SDMC commissioner Puneet Kumar Goel said that it is the first step towards providing better facilities to citizens. “With this card property taxpayers will remember their property number which is also available online. With the help of the online facility, property tax-payers will get the data of their previous year’s property tax details,” Dr Goel said.