26 BBMP officials receive notice for not reclassifying 4,000 city roads

BENGALURU: As the members of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) which includes five zonal joint commissioners and 21 assistant revenue officers (AROs) who are under the scanner for not reclassifying 4,000 streets in several upgraded zones for the collection of property tax.

N Manjunatha Prasad the commissioner of the BBMP has issued show-cause notices to the 26 officials, asking for an explanation from them within the next seven days. The notices, have been dated for the 3rd of January, and have been issued under the Karnataka Civil Services (Conduct) Rules 1966, 3 (iii) and any failure to reply warrants action.

The joint commissioners who are involved are: Dr Nagaraju (Yelahanka), Jagadish (Mahadevapura), Bal Shekhar (RR Nagar), Vishwanath (south zone) and Raveendra (east zone).

The joint commissioner (revenue) M Venkatachalapathy had said that there are 25,000 streets in the city of Bengaluru and the joint commissioners and assistant revenue officers were given the task of reclassifying them under different zones, as it had been prescribed in a notification that was issued in 2016-17. “It shows utter negligence on the part of these officers,” Venkatachalapathy said.

Another officer said that, the zonal reclassifications has been affected, as the citizens would have paid the appropriate property tax. “Some roads were not included under the reclassified zones. As a result, taxpayers could, on their own, select the zones under which their properties fell. Hence, they ended up paying less tax than what was prescribed,” he explained.