KARACHI - Provincial Minister for Excise and Taxation Mukesh Kumar said that property survey based on Geographical Information System (GIS) may increase tax collection.

This he said while talking to a delegation of the World Bank here in his office on Wednesday. He said that the Sindh Excise and Taxation Department is keen interested to have launching a comprehensive property survey in Karachi based on GIS as it is going on in Sukkur that has produced wonderful results.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss scope of proposed ‘Karachi Urban Management including roadmap for reform of property tax in Sindh’. The members of the World Bank delegation assured the minister for ET&NC of their full co-operation regarding property survey in Karachi based on GIS.

The meeting was informed that a property survey based on GIS was going on in Sukkur and it was near to completion and due to this survey the number of property units have increased from 30 thousands to more than 70 thousands.

The meeting was also informed that at present the collection amount for property tax was approximately Rs2 billion across the province and if the property survey based on GIS is to be conducted, the tax collection may increase from Rs2 billion to Rs8 billion and it will be a great benefit to national exchequer.

Project Leader Yoonhee Kim, Roland White Global Leader for financing and governance, Director Generals Shabbir Ahmed Shaikh, Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui and other officers were also present on the occasion.