KARACHI: The provincial government on Wednesday informed the World Bank (WB) that all was set to start the much-delayed property survey in the city from Aug 30.

A meeting of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and a WB team led by its Country Director Najy Benhassine at the CM House was told that the provincial government had hired a firm which would start the work by the end of this month. The technical evaluation of the property survey was also shared with the WB team.

The fresh property survey, which was last conducted in 2001, is being held to increase property tax collection in the city under the World Bank-sponsored US$ 240 million Competitive and Livable City of Karachi (CLICK) project.

It was also informed that a geographic information system-based management information system for property tax survey was being developed by the provincial government.

Exercise aims at increasing property tax collection from the metropolis

In October last year, the caretaker government had informed the WB that the procurement of the satellite imagery data and development of the software required for the property tax survey would be completed in March 2024 and the mega exercise would begin afterwards.

According to a press statement issued by the CM House, the meeting also reviewed the overall progress of World Bank-assisted 14 projects of $3.4 billion and agreed to remove the bottleneck that exists and speed up the slow pace projects for their timely completion.

It said that the CLICK project had been launched to improve urban management, service delivery and the business environment in the city and provide an immediate and effective response to an eligible crisis or emergency.

The provincial government decided to conduct the property survey in Karachi as one of the components of CLICK is “improvement of urban property tax system” as only 800,000 property units in the city were being taxed for property in 2021 when the last property survey across Sindh was held.

Earlier, the chief minister had said that the property tax collection would increase to Rs3.63bn from Rs1.72bn in the last fiscal year after the property tax survey.

According to Board of Revenue, the GIS Section has been equipped with the capability of identifying changes in occupancy on state land through GIS Imagery in Karachi Division to survey number level.

The World Bank Group has funded a $240 million Competitive and Livable City of Karachi (CLICK) project, which is aimed at bringing in radical reforms in the infrastructure of the metropolis with a particular emphasis on increasing efficiency of the local government delivery system.

It may be recalled that the provincial cabinet in May had allowed cantonment boards to collect property tax within their respective limits and transfer the collected revenue to the provincial government after deducting their two per cent service charges.

The cabinet took the decision in view of the Supreme Court’s April 23 order that had directed the provincial government to enact a law within three months to bring to end a controversy over whether the provincial government or the cantonment boards in Karachi will assess and collect the urban property tax from residents of the cantonment areas.

After 18th Amendment, the federal government and cantonment boards do not have any competence, power and jurisdiction to levy, charge, impose and recover taxes on any immovable property including tax on the annual rental value of immovable property.

The provincial government had devolved the collection of property tax from the excise & taxation (E&T) department to the local government department in July 2022.

The CM and the WB country director agreed to hold another meeting after a month to review the progress of the time set by them in the meeting.

The meeting was attended among others by provincial ministers —Sharjeel Memon, Dr Azra Fazal Peehuho, Nasir Shah, Saeed Ghani, Sardar Shah and Jam Khan Shoro — Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, Planning and Development Chairman Najam Shah, provincial secretaries and project directors of the World Bank-assisted projects.

The World Bank team comprised Kamran Akbar, Murtaza Noorani, Omar Riaz, Waleed Anwar, Uzma Sadaf, and others.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2024