Questions/Answers

New Town Kolkata is a planned newly developed satellite city on the north-eastern fringes of Kolkata, West Bengal. The city is 10 years old, being born with the enactment of the NKDA Act in 2009 and aspires to not only provide its citizens with world class infrastructure, sustainable environment and means of living but also a transparent and accountable citizen service delivery mechanism along with ensuring the financial sustainability of the administration through increases its own source of funds. In aspiring to enhance transparency and accountability along with ensuring financial sustainability, the city introduced complete ICT based property tax assessment and payment from 1st April 2018 under Unit Area Assessment System. Under this system, every taxpayer in the city is able to initiate and complete the entire process - from assessment to payment - online. Additionally there is provision for “Tax Sathis” to assist if required. No document upload is required. This is the first successful completely paperless and online property tax filing system in India and is a boon for people residing both inside and outside the state to self-assess their properties and pay their assessed taxes, while ensuring middlemen are avoided. The system being fairly simple and citizen friendly has led to over 90% of the properties in the city coming under the ambit of Property Tax. To enhance the citizen experience, the city has enhanced its grievance redressal mechanism by introducing a SMS based and App based grievance lodging and redressal mechanism, through its m-Governance App. The improved grievance management system has resulted in improved two way interaction with the citizen, faster resolution of grievances and subsequently efficient administration. The redressal mechanism covers grievances pertaining to Property Tax along with other municipal services like Waste Management, Water Supply, Drainage, Trade License, Birth & Death Registration etc.

The intervention in enhancing city governance aligns with the category – “developing transparent and accountable public institutions”. ICT enabled Property Tax and Grievance Redressal interventions have been undertaken by the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (city administration) to enhance the governance mechanism and ensure that the operations of the body is transparent, accountable and participatory. The city in consultation with its citizens have developed this mechanism that has led to improvement in city level governance (Refer to report on Happy City Index 2019 - conducted by IIT Kharagpur comparing the Governance Score in 2017 and 2019)

The intervention aligns with Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development and Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. Within Goal 17, target 17.1 states the need for strengthening domestic resource mobilization and indicator 17.1.2 states “Proportion of domestic budget funded by domestic taxes”. ICT based Property Tax mechanism is in alignment with the Goal, Target and Indicator, and has contributed to 42.30% of NKDA revenue share in 2018-19, translating to 32.31% of the budgetary allocation for 2019-2020. Within Goal 16, target 16.6 states the need for developing effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels and indicator 16.6.2 states “Proportion of the population satisfied with their last experience of public services”. The interventions undertaken has affected the overall experience of citizens. The experience of the citizens in availing services from the city administration was captured under the head “Governance” under the IIT Kharagpur study - Happy City Index 2019. The score shows an increase from 6.5 in 2017 to 7.10 in 2019 (on a scale of 8 for the parameter Local Administration)

Social: The intervention ensures that every citizen has equal information and access to availing the services and being heard. It ensures that city administrators listen to citizens and in addressing their concerns become participative and socially aware. Economic: Property Tax ensures that NKDA can generate revenue and thus become financial sustainable. It ensures lesser dependency on grants and other sources of funds. Environmental: Being completely paperless and ICT enabled ensures that the environment is less endangered. Reduction in paper usage ensures a greener environment. Being ICT enabled also reduces the footfall in the office locations thus impacting the carbon footprint.

In India, property tax assessment and payment system is majorly completely manual or partially manual. Assessing property tax manually creates a scope for corruption and leakage. This inadvertently affects not only the revenue collection potential of the administration but also the citizens’s service delivery experience. Additionally grievance redressal in most cities is managed through the web or through physical visits. Physical visits is a deterrent since there is no option of being anonymous. In New Town Kolkata the benefits of the intervention include: 1) tax assessment and payment process being online, reduces the potential for corruption and human intervention, 2) reduces the time taken for assessing and paying tax, 3) being online it makes it convenient for all citizens (residing in the city and outside the city) to pay taxes, 4) reduces time as no documents are required to be uploaded since all properties are tagged on the system. This has resulted in the hugely 91% property tax collection in the very first year of its roll out. Additionally, the grievance redressal mechanism in New Town is 4 pronged – web enabled, SMS based, App based and physical dropbox / grievance redressal officer, ensuring maximum means of contact with the citizens.

Being a completely online mechanism, it is completely inclusive. Any one from any gender, social category can avail the service and she will be heard. All genders are treated equally. As of 31st October 2019, 229 women have recoded their grievance through the grievance management system (which is 29% of total number of individuals registering complaints). In Property tax assessment, 32% applicants are women.

The target population are all existing and upcoming property owners of New Town both residential and commercial. The target population also includes the owners/promotors of all existing and upcoming educational institutions, healthcare and medical institutions, research centres, campuses of global and international companies etc. The target group also includes visitors to the city and people transiting through the city. Citizens and Businesses: Citizens and businesses have been offered an easy, citizen friendly mechanism by means of which they can from the comfort of their homes and offices pay property tax and also lodge grievances. In the event that citizens face an issue with assessing or paying property tax, government has appointed “Tax Sathis” who provide door step services and facilitate online assessments/payments for the digitally challenged, completely free of charge. All these facilities has resulted in willing cooperation from the people Others: All other relevant stakeholders who are associated with New Town can avail of the Grievance Redressal mechanism and connect with the administration. Additionally, they benefit from the development work undertaken by NKDA with the funds collected through Property tax assessment.

Property Tax: a) Property tax assessment done under Unit Area Assessment Method. City was divided into 34 Areas. b) Each area had a specific identification category, with a Base Unit Area Value (BUAV) in INR/Sq Ft assigned to each category. c) Stakeholder consultations were carried out with local citizen groups, local experts, technology providers and large corporate tax payers. d) WTL, A Government of West Bengal enterprise was selected as the technology partner and tasked with implementing and deploying the system. e) Regular communication held between NKDA IT team, WTL and other stakeholders. f) Digital Resources were selected and trained to work as ‘Tax Sathis’ who would assist people in assessing and paying tax. g) An effective IEC campaign was run to onboard citizens. h) 24 hours dedicated hotlines opened to address citizen queries; teams from the ULB led by senior officials visited door to door to facilitate tax assessments. Social media platforms, Advertisements, flyers, banners etc were also used. Grievance Redressal: a) In 2014, the web based grievance redressal portal was developed. b) In 2016, an SMS based system was developed on the status of complaints which is constantly updated. c) In 2017, an app was launched for grievance redressal d) In 2019, additional modules were launched for the app to enable better tracking of complaint resolution. e) A dedicated WhatsApp no is available for citizens to post pictures and raise complaints. A happiness index of the city was conducted in 2019 by IIT Kharagpur. The survey had a sample size of 1,406 residents from various neighbourhoods who were asked to rate the city on various parameters. For the governance parameter in the survey, under “Local Administration” sub parameter, the city scored 7.10 out of 8 against 6.50 in 2017.

Property Tax: New Town had no property taxes applicable till April, 2018. The tax assessment, collection or payment infrastructure was not present. A user friendly tax assessment was implemented from scratch in consultation with stakeholders. Grievance: Earlier complaints were received manually resulting in leakage and delay and lack of transparency in resolution. With the multi-pronged approach that is visible across administrative levels, the system of lodging and resolving grievances has improved and accountability increased. Additionally citizens are made aware of grievance closure through SMS.

Given the challenges of lack of transparency, accountability and digital illiteracy, the innovation includes: a) paperless system of assessment and payment of taxes and lodging grievances, leveraging the net, enables the end user to avail the services from the confines of their home / office without any need for face to face contact with the authorities, b) considering the digital gap in our society, the provision of trained volunteers, ‘Tax Sathis’ who can help people on request to pay their tax online, is an innovation c) grievance app enables stakeholders to upload photographs of any incident/event they wish to report

The initiatives drew inspiration from multiple regions and countries including Flemish speaking Region of Belgium. The Integrated Government Services of the Flemish speaking Region of Belgium includes more than 70 government agencies, including education, culture, healthcare and international development etc. serving nearly 6 million citizens of the region. There an opportunity was sensed to streamline information flow and reduce operational data efficiency across agencies each time they interacted with citizens. A system was designed to ensure that no information would be required to be submitted twice. Flemish government designed a platform named “Maximum Data Sharing Between Administrations and Agencies” (MAGDA).

Not aware

The solution is easily replicable. Though the application including its intellectual property, source code and offline assets are the property of NKDA, NKDA will willingly partner to replicate or implement this project. Successful implementation will include: • Customization of the logic of the solution implemented to incorporate that target city’s unique urban characteristics such as category of divisions, base unit area value per category, multipliers for various buildings etc. • Enforcement of the solutions and providing all possible assistance to the citizens to imbibe the new system • Dedicated capacity building hand holding support along with awareness creation for increasing citizen participation • Constant out reach to participate with the citizens to incorporate their feedback in the system being developed

The development of the grievance redressal app took about ~ INR 5.08 Lakhs while the online Property Tax system was developed by NKDA internally with only a ~ INR 0.68 Lakhs periodic security audit expenses. The systems were developed through contractual agreement with specialised agencies. Thereafter 5 people address grievances and 10 address Property Tax requirements.

The operations and maintenance of the online mechanism and the associated hardware is covered by a contractual agreement renewable by mutual consent for the Authority and the vendors. A lean team is deployed to oversee the interventions. While five individuals are dedicatedly addressing the grievance mechanism, the property tax section has only ten staff including one Officer thus reducing overheads. Resource productivity in last FY 2018-19 was INR3.9 crores/head, thus making the intervention financial sustainable. Institutionally the staff in these sections are regularly trained to be able to address the needs of the system and the citizens.

Yes

The initiative was evaluated along with all other city initiatives on the basis of Citizen Perception and Happiness in the Happy City Index Survey of 2019 by Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness, IIT Kharagpur. The evaluation was facilitated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs under its ‘Ease of Living Index 2018’. The objective was to gauge the citizen perception on a scale of 10 and to find out the predictors of citizen happiness for a city.

The survey was carried out across New Town Kolkata. One representative each from 1,406 households, aged >= 18 years, was interviewed. A total number of 1,406 respondents were interviewed wherein 1295 were from high rises and apartments, 111 were from the nearby slums. 411 interviewees were from Action Area 1, 347 from Action Area 2, and 537 from Action Area 3, and 111 interviewees were from slum dwellers and vendors. Of the 1295 respondents, 723 were male and 572 were female. The questions were asked on a three point scale which was then turned into a ten point scale for effectiveness. As many as 75 parameters were then mapped in a statistical graph to judge the performance of the same.

The main findings of the evaluation on the Governance parameter – Economic Inequality, Local Administration and Emergency Preparedness – highlights that the citizens perception of happiness with these parameters had improved significantly in 2019 over 2017. On the parameter Local Administration, the scores improved from 6.50 to 7.10, between 2017 and 2019. While the results indicate that further action may be undertaken to improve governance, citizens overall feel that the city authority’s administration has improved over the years.

This initiative is operated through the E-District Portal. On logging into the portal and selecting assessment of property tax or payment of property tax one is guided to the local municipality webpage. Post assessing tax online, payment can be made through a payment gateway. The New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) leads the initiative and ensures its compliance with the state finance rules and urban development guidelines. The grievance redressal mechanism has an unified call center, a dedicated multi-departmental web portal, an app and an SMS based system, all maintained nd operated by NKDA. A single number 18001037652, is used for all citizen concerns / queries / grievances. There is an option to flag a query in the name of multiple departments from the user side post which an inter-departmental team coordinates amongst each other to take up the issue for review. Also the user is called for feedback post the resolution of the issue. All the concerned departments under the various local bodies such as NKDA (New Town Kolkata Development Authority), HIDCO (Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation), NKGSCCL (New Town Kolkata Green Smart City Corporation Limited) meet every Friday to discuss any pending issues with respect to citizen feedback. .

Designing: NKDA (New Town Kolkata Development Authority) which is the local development authority, HIDCO (Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation) which is the local infrastructure development authority, Department of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, Finance Department West Bengal, Webel Technology Ltd (a Govt. of West Bengal Undertaking of Department of Information Technology & Electronics), Tata Consultancy Services, MaxMobility and Residents, people visiting the city, people working in the city etc. Implementing: New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) was the chief stakeholder of in the project, with WTL, a Government of enterprise, selected as the technology partner, tasked with the implementation and deployment of the project. Evaluation: A high level evaluation was done by the Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in the context of Ease of Living Index 2018 of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India for the Happiness Index in July, 2019.

Pre-deployment Scenario: New Town had no property taxes applicable till April 2018. So, the public had no precedence, behaviour, habit or understanding of paying property taxes. An innovative practice of tax assessment that was simple and intuitive was developed. Post-deployment scenario: The paperless system with option for offline payments and Tax Sathis got people to pay their property tax on time. ~91% of the target properties paid their tax online. Resource productivity of the tax collection department in FY 2018-19 per employee was very high (~3.9 crores per head). 32,000 properties were assessed with only 7 members which was a very lean organisational structure. 41 Tax Sathis were deployed on field to provide free assistance to people who were not computer literate. Lessons Learnt (Tax): Digital initiatives for citizen services drives resource productivity, and better delivery of citizen services. Stakeholder consultations with citizens, experts, academia and industry ensured a relatively bug free deployment and better participation Lessons Learnt (Grievance): The redressal mechanism was updated to ensure that administrators do not delegate their complaints to their subordinates and a feedback score from the users was incorporated to ensure efficiency. Online system with citizen feedback mechanism made administrators more accountable.