MCD logs dip in property tax collection, taxpayers in FY24

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has registered a dip in property tax revenue collection as well as the number of taxpayers in 2023-24 even as the other sectors, including parking, advertisement and trade licences, recorded an uptick with the financial year culminating on Sunday, senior municipal officials said.
The property tax department tentatively collected around ₹2,137 crore till March 31 with 1,258,000 tax payers filing returns, according to one of the officials cited above. Municipal data shows that the civic body collected around ₹2,417 crore from 1,329,641 taxpayers in the preceding year 2022-23. Earlier in December, the municipal commissioner’s budget proposed a collection target of ₹4,300 crore from property taxes for 2023-24.
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The corporation has recorded a decrease of over ₹250 crore in the tax collection with a net dip of around 70,000 taxpayers. “Last year, MCD offered an amnesty scheme (Samriddhi scheme) due to which the revenue collection jumped by 20% and more than 1.3 lakh taxpayers registered under this scheme alone. This led to an all-time high property tax collection. In absence of such a scheme this year, the number has dipped,” a second senior official said, asking not to be named.
Property tax collection remains one the key revenue streams for the Capital’s municipality, which also earns from trade licence fee, advertisement charges, parking, mobile towers, fines, and some other streams.
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This year, the advertisement department has reported a net collection of ₹304.5 crore — 35% jump from collection of ₹225.7 crore collected last year.
“This is the highest ever collection from advertisement sector on record. It was yielding between ₹160– ₹190 crore between 2016 and 2020. It dipped to ₹84.8 crore in 2020-21 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The recovery started in 2021-22 with ₹137 crore, which rose to ₹225.7 crore last year, and breached ₹300-crore mark for the first time this year,” a third municipal official said while attributing the jump to crackdown on illegal advertisements, surrogate advertisements and regulations of self-signages.
Similarly, the remunerative projects (RP) cell that oversees sectors, including parking, mobile towers and charging stations, reported a revenue collection of ₹253.9 crore — a 19% jump from ₹213.27 crore collected last year.
The public health department, which earns revenue from health trade licences issued to eateries, restaurants and hotels, reported an increase of licence fee from ₹34 crore last year to ₹50 crore this year.
Leader of opposition from BJP and former mayor Raja Iqbal Singh said that the corruption of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led to a decrease of about ₹300 crore in the property tax collection of MCD this year as compared to last year. “The number of taxpayers has also decreased. Since the AAP came to power, they have not come up with any amnesty scheme for the citizens, while on the other hand, the administration has tried to intimidate the citizens by sending them property tax notices. Money which should have gone to the corporation’s treasury from property tax was kept in the pockets of AAP leaders and house tax inspectors, due to which MCD had to suffer a loss of revenue,” he added.
HT reached out to the mayor and the mayor’s office, but did not get any response to requests for comments.