Hyderabad: Property tax payers face hiccups over OTP

Hyderabad: The new system introduced to collect property taxes online by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is creating trouble for the citizens as it is mandated to open the tax account through one-time password (OTP) only.

Most of the taxpayers registered their Property Tax Identification Number (PTIN) without phone number and some of them were not using the old numbers which do not exist.

The OTP system to check the property tax came into effect 10 days back. Soon after entering the PTIN number in the GHMC web portal the OTP is sent to the registered phone number and if citizens enter the OTP then only they can view their pending amount of property tax. Earlier the citizens used to check their amount of property tax and the pending amount year-wise if any just by entering their PTIN in the GHMC web portal.

By introducing the OTP, many were facing problems in viewing their pending amount of property tax through online as most of the numbers that were linked to PTIN were not used now or don't exist and few of the public were not getting the OTP when they entered their registered phone number. This forced house owners to go to the GHMC offices in their circles to know their property tax dues.

According to the sources, 45 per cent of the property tax is paid through the GHMC online portals or Meeseva. An amount of Rs 1,705 crore was collected in the form of property tax during the last financial year and but currently GHMC received 50 per cent of the property tax of July last year. This year from April to July 28, the civic body collected an amount of Rs 671 crore in the form of property tax.