Pay your water tax online from next week

Lokmat News Network

Rafique Aziz

Aurangabad, Jan 18:

The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is all set to provide a maiden opportunity first of its kind facility to pay their water tax, like property tax, online as the Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation Limited (ASCDCL), has geared up to dedicate the holistic 'E-Governance' platform to the citizens during next week. The ASCDCL chief executive officer (CEO) and municipal commissioner A K Pandey has reviewed the status of the project. It is likely to be launched on January 26 (Republic Day), said the sources.

The estimated cost of the e-governance project is Rs 22 crore including Capex expenditure of Rs 7 crore and operation and maintenance cost for 10 years is Rs 15 crore. It is implementing the project through a private agency. E-Governance platform will help the citizens to access different essential services. More than 30 departments and their services have been integrated and are affiliated to the dedicated modern portal, citizens app and AMC website. We have readied 31 modules including online payment of property tax, water tax, grievance redressal and licenses. This unique service will be dedicated to the citizens very soon, said the assistant project manager (ASCDCL) Sneha Nair.

Five Pilot CFCs

Under the E-Governance project, the work to establish five Citizens Facilitation Centres (CFC) is underway on war-footing to start by next week. The pilot CFCs will be set up in office of Zone Numbers 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9. This will be a completely unique and citizens-friendly set up. At the CFCs, the citizens can apply for various kinds of certificates (Birth and Death), various types of licences (Trade Licences, Hawkers License), permission for hoarding and advertising, cutting

and trimming of trees, registration of Shops & Establishments etc. The complaints regarding civic facilities will also be welcomed at the CFCs. The CFCs will also act as 'One Window System' for making various payments in cash or even by cheque for bills of all departments, such as charges for all types of licenses, deposits, permission and water charges, among others, said the project engineer (ASCDCL) Syed Faiz Ali.

75 Digital Kiosks in phases

The ASCDCL on its charts to establish 75 digital kiosks in different parts of the city in phases. These self-service payment kiosks will be citizens-friendly and provide the citizens with a fast and secure way to pay their bills using cash, cheque and card 24x7. " The kiosks will be located at crowded places like bus stands, railway station, banks, all AMC's nine zone offices etc. This will help the people in large number to avail facility at their convenience. Plans are to establish 75 kiosks in different corners of the city in phases. Presently, the works to establish one digital kiosk in Zone Number 9 office is in the final stage," underlined the ASCDCL officers Ali and Nair.

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AMC targets to recover water tax of Rs 108.57 cr

As per the record, there are 1.35 lakh water connections including 2,700 commercial. The AMC is collecting a water tax of Rs 4,050 per year since 2017.

Elaborated the deputy commissioner and assessor and collector of tax (ACT) Aparna Thete, " The target collection of water tax for the year 2021-22 is Rs 108.57 crore. To enhance the collection, in February 2021, the AMC introduced Point of Sales (PoS) machines in each zone office for the convenience of citizens to pay their water tax through swiping a debit card, credit card, UPI payment or other payment wallets. Besides, in 2012, the facility of paying property tax online was introduced. Both the experiments are yielding good results. Now, the online payment of water tax through

E-Governance platform, CFCs and digital kiosks will definitely boost the collection beyond expectations. It will help save time and energy for the citizens and manual work like checking records and issuing tax receipts would be a thing of the past. The water tax relating complaints will also be resolved on priority to avoid delay in payments."