Just about everything under a single roof

Citizen Service Centres (CSC) have bridged the lacuna that existed between the civic agency and the citizen. The ten CSCs have not just facilitated the payment of taxes, but also the issuing of birth and death certificates, placing a viable option of not having to go to BBMP offices.The conception of the idea for the centre stemmed from the requirement of providing all the BBMP services under one roof. Apart from taxes, these centers also help with Khata certificates. To begin with, when the centres came into existence in 2003, there were many more services that were provided. But over time, services such as building planning got their own departments.Before the transformation of erstwhile BMP to BBMP in 2007, the CSCs had a different approach. There were only 100 wards that fell under the jurisdiction of the corporation and of those, there were only seven lakh properties that were registered. However, after the formation of BBMP, seven City Municipal Council (CMC) and one Town Municipal Council (TMC) were added. “The manner is which the CMCs and TMC worked was different from that of the existing system followed by the BBMP. The system used by them was based on capital value system unlike the BBMP’s that was based on self assessment,” quoted an official from the BBMP.He further added that there were a few technical problems that arose in an attempt to merge the two systems. The BBMP has also installed a Geographical Information System (GIS) that can identify every single property that comes under BBMP along with the nature of the property, to bring all the properties under the tax net. “At the moment 22 wards are left that have to be equipped with the system,” he said.Ramakanth, deputy commissioner revenue said, “In the next couple of months all the systems will be completely computerised. Once that is done, anyone can pay their taxes in any of the CSC or the BBMP contact points. At the moment the dues for the present year have to be paid at the local contact point, while those pending until 2008 have to be paid at the CSC.”According to Kantraj, a local who had come to the MG Road centre for obtaining his birth certificate, the process is very convenient. “Once we gave the details to the operator, the certificate was issued after paying a nominal fees of  Rs 50 within a matter of minutes,” he said.Shalini had come to the centre to pay her house tax. “This is the first time I came here. When I inquired about my payment, the operator asked me to go to the zonal office as I was not aware of the current set of rules. The good part is that she was informative and the idea of having these centres are very convenient,” she said.