In an effort to enhance urban governance and ensure equitable tax assessments, the Patna Municipal Corporation is embarking on an extensive city survey. This initiative is designed to uncover unregistered properties, validate self-assessed values, and identify any misuse of residential properties for commercial purposes.
Patna: The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) is set to begin a citywide survey to track the wide gap between the number of electricity connections and registered properties (holdings) in the state capital.
The move aims to identify unregistered properties, verify self-assessments, ascertain actual occupancy status and detect misuse of residential holdings for commercial and other non-residential purposes.According to PMC officials, Patna currently has over five lakh electricity connections, while only around 3.06 lakh properties are registered as holdings with the civic body. Alarmed by this discrepancy, the urban development and housing department (UDHD) has issued fresh instructions to conduct a comprehensive ground survey across all sectors under PMC jurisdiction to cross-verify records.The exercise has gained further urgency in the wake of a recent Supreme Court directive asking municipal bodies across all states and Union territories to identify residential areas being misused for commercial activities and to submit affidavits detailing such violations by mid-May 2026.Patna Mayor Sita Sahu said the process of empanelling an expert agency has already been initiated alongside PMC’s own surveyors.
“The agency will conduct door-to-door surveys in every ward to map holdings that are officially categorized as residential but are actually being used for shops, offices, coaching centres, lodges, eateries, guest houses and other commercial activities,” she said.She added that the survey is expected to expand the tax base and plug revenue leakages. “It will help ensure accurate assessment of holding tax based on the actual use of properties and improve overall urban governance in the city,” the mayor said.To facilitate the exercise, the PMC has divided its six circles — Azimabad, Bankipur, Kankerbagh, New Capital, Patliputra and Patna City — into 375 sectors for revenue collection and sanitation purposes. Survey teams will cover each sector systematically.Explaining the existing system, PMC public relations officer Harshita said property owners are mandated under the Act to carry out self-assessment. “Through the PMC portal, owners enter details such as name, address, ward number, property area and category — residential or commercial — and upload Aadhaar and property-related documents.
After self-assessment, they receive a self-assessment number for tax payment,” she said.However, she clarified that a permanent Property ID (PID) is generated only after physical verification by the revenue teams from the respective circles.“The survey will verify whether the assessments filed are accurate and whether the property is being used for self-residence, rented out, or converted for commercial purposes such as shops, godowns, offices or coaching centres,” Harshita said.She noted that different usage categories attract different tax rates, with rented or non-residential properties generally liable to higher holding tax.“Many people conceal changes in usage, such as renting out a house or starting a shop, because the tax increases marginally for profit-oriented or commercial use. All such changes are cross-verified by our teams,” she said, adding that the department recently flagged the large gap between electricity connections and registered holdings in Patna.The PMC is also offering a five percent rebate on lump sum payment of property tax if the payment is made before June 30, the first quarter of the financial year.In addition, anyone purchasing a new property — including land or flats — within PMC limits must complete self-assessment within 30 days of acquisition. Failure to do so will attract a penalty of Rs 2,000 for residential properties and Rs 5,000 for non-residential properties, officials said.
