MCD drive to geotag property fails to elicit expected response

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) drive to geotag commercial and residential properties in the Capital has received a poor response, with just 78,000 properties being geotagged by their owners-far short of the target of 1.5 million properties by the end of January, civic officials aware of the matter said on Thursday.

- Paras Singh

Geotagging properties means digitally mapping a property with the geographic information system (GIS). This means that a property can be identified on a map with its unique and permanent latitude and longitude coordinates. To do this, property owners must download MCD's mobile app, and while present at their property, select the "current location" and link it with any unique property identification code (UPIC).

Delhi is estimated to have more than 3 million buildings, but only 1.3 million are registered with MCD.

The purpose of geotagging properties is to bring more property owners under the tax net and improve the delivery of civic services, officials said.

"Geotagging of properties by taxpayers will provide a location-wise identification of individual properties and will enable better provisioning of service delivery to residents. It will also help catch properties that are not paying taxes," said an MCD official, on condition of anonymity.