Corporation website down, property taxpayers in a fix

Some of the key activities that have been affected include, online payment of corporation property tax, payments pertaining to birth and death certificates, besides sanctioning of financial benefits to the employees and release of funds to contractors.

As most payments for civic services can now be made only through the online portal, people who have been trying to pay their property taxes or even obtain birth and death certificates have been suffering due to the software malfunction since October 2.

With the deadline for payment of property tax just a week away (October 15), property owners in the city are in a fix. “The corporation has recently revised property tax rates in the city and is giving notices of revision to property owners. However, we are worried as we have not been able to pay taxes online in the past couple of days,” M Vishnu, a resident of Choolaimedu said.

Sources in the City Corporation claimed that the civic body’s payment portal went down on October 2 and is yet to be fixed.

While senior officials stated that a miscellaneous file had corrupted the payment portal and the same has been cleared, unconfirmed sources in the civic body said that the service provider had stalled services owing to the delay in release of funds from Chennai Corporation.

Apart from residents, a few Corporation staff are feeling the pinch as they are yet to receive financial benefits like payment for earned leave. “I have applied to avail payment for earned leave. But the money is yet to be credited in my account. When asked, senior officials cite online issues for the delay,” a corporation health department staff riled.

“Many property taxpayers are unable to pay their taxes. Also, the Corporation is yet to distribute the revision notices to several residents. With only a week for the stipulated deadline, the civic body should give us enough time to receive notices and pay taxes,” Vishnu added.

When contacted, a senior Corporation official stated that the technical team has been trying to fix the software error. “The snag has been fixed to a large extent and the website is operational now,” he claimed.