Citizens will have to rush to pay their property tax bills at the last minute as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is yet to receive the State Cabinet nod to maintain the level of property tax charged and not increase it. There are hardly two months remaining in the financial year and it will take the civic body at least a month to print and distribute copies of revised bills after it gets approval. The BMC budget for the next year will be presented in the next 2-3 days, but the corporation is far from collecting its second-highest source of income—property tax.

As per the rules, property tax rates are hiked every five years. As the BMC hasn’t done this since 2020-21, it required a nod every year from the state government to not hike it and the approval generally comes within the first six months of the financial year. However, this year the BMC didn’t send any proposal to not raise the tax and instead started uploading online bills in the last week of December with an announced hike of 15-20 per cent. The move drew criticism from citizens and the BMC immediately withdrew it on December 30, assuring that the revised bills will be sent with the same amount as last year, i.e. 2022-23.