Only 10,500 UID No. plates installed at houses

Tribune News Service

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Jalandhar, January 30

A month ago, the process of the installation of unique identification (UID) number plates on the taxable properties kicked off in the city.

The main aim of the project is bringing transparency in property tax collection. The project was first mentioned in 2016, but for years, it continued to hang fire. Now that it has been started, it remains to be seen if it would be completed on time or not.

The process is already moving at a snail’s pace. The current target is to cover 1 lakh properties till March 31, but only 10,500 of them have been covered so far.

A private company has been roped in for the completion of the project, but only 10 employees have been working at the moment.

The civic body, however, has asked the company to increase the number of employees so that work on the project could be expedited.

As per the information, the city was divided in 20 sectors according to a survey done by a company in 2016. According to the survey that was carried out seven years ago, the city has above two lakh properties, of which around 1,75,000 properties are taxable ones. Last year, the Punjab Municipal Infrastructure Development Company had started a survey ‘again’ to check if there is any update on the survey work done in 2016. Until now, the survey of just 10 sectors were completed and work on the remaining ones is still pending.

The MC officials said the process has been taking this long because verification is under way.