The GHMC has set its eyes on commercial activities in residential buildings. For the financial year 2021-22, the GHMC fell short of reaching the target for property tax collections, forcing it to focus on commercial activity in residential buildings. The GHMC officials have conducted special drives in the city and served notices on owners of 1100 buildings and gave them deadline of 15 days to change the status of their houses from residential to that of commercial. Otherwise, the house owners have been warned of attracting huge penalty.
Thousands of commercial activities are going on in residential buildings, the GHMC officials said. They attributed it to lack of coordination between town planning and revenue departments. Last year, over 7000 houses have been converted from residential to commercial category. Play schools, hostels, provisional stores, beauty parlours were being conducted from residential houses. As a result, the GHMC is not able to assess the property tax correctly losing revenue heavily. In this backdrop, the GHMC officials launched special drive.
