Mangaluru : Taking note that many educational institutes, who have their huge buildings in the jurisdiction of gram panchayats, are not paying property tax, a committee here on Thursday decided to ask the panchayats to conduct a physical survey of such buildings and make them pay the tax.

Raising the subject at the monthly meeting of the Karnataka Development Programme Review Committee, Satish Kumpala, vice-president, Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat, said that the educational institutes are not paying the tax under the guise that they are managed by “charitable trusts”. There is no exemption for institutes managed by charitable trusts from paying the tax. As a result revenue collection of many gram panchayats has suffered, he said.

He said that there were anomalies in the tax structure of the panchayats. They have to be rectified. Many panchayats were not collecting tax from commercial complexes and other huge buildings. They were collecting tax only from houses. The committee decided to ask the panchayat development officers (PDOs) to visit such buildings and decide the tax by conducting physical verification.

The meeting also decided to ask the panchayats to frame building by-laws at the earliest, which was required for issuing new building licences. P.I. Sreevidya, Chief Executive Officer of the zilla panchayat, said that the tax for commercial buildings and houses should be decided as per the government circular. She asked the executive officers of taluk panchayats to fix property tax collection target per each gram panchayat. She said that if any PDO failed to achieve the target, it should be mentioned in their annual confidential reports. She asked the officials to take action against such buildings built without licence.

Deputy Secretary N.R. Umesh said that if government buildings were not available for the offices of newly constituted gram panchayats offices, they could be opened in rented buildings. Mr. Kumpala said that at least two acres of land should be allotted for the offices of new gram panchayats.