Another wonderful GOVT experience

Like I always say, I have to mention specially when a government interaction goes smooth.

So like we all know, our Khata transfer experience has been nightmarish. Don't get me wrong, whenever work gets done it gets done in two minutes, but the number of iterations it takes for that one iteration where work gets done is HUGE. And we have literally made the Jeevan Bima Nagar ARO office our hang out place ;)

So after the usual 10:1 iteration ratio for work doesn't get done to work gets done, we finally got a piece of paper which showed transfer of property ownership. We were told to file property tax returns for last year under SAS and subsequently pay property tax for this year, and produce the receipt for this year's tax payment for getting the Khata certificate. You see, the previous owner had paid last year's fee. But since our Khata transfer process spilled into the next revenue year, the "latest" tax paid receipt would now be 2009-2010 (and the 2008-2009 we attached earlier will no longer suffice. Perfect logic, agreed.) Now the previous owner had filed it before BBMP came up with SAS 2008. So we had to file our tax paid under SAS 2008 to be able to pay 2009-2010 tax. Still good logic. So I got about obtaining and filling forms.

BBMP has made every attempt to make this process painless, except for I couldn't find the nearest contact point's address for Donkey's years. After rounds of phone calls, we were finally referred back to our ARO office for details. So I called them (most of them know me and Subhash and our address by heart now I imagine!) and they told me it is a stone's throw away from our place near Kodihalli bus stop. So went there today after work with Subhash's dad, and for the life of me I couldn't imagine a simpler government process.

We had referred the online tax calculator and filled in the forms. The office was empty, like I heard they usually are, not that much rush. Hours are convenient, 9-12 in the morning, and 4-7 in the evening. There were two guys. We went in, he cross-verified what I had filled, and asked to work out details of depreciation. (I had simply copied it from the calculator) I was scared he'd ask me to come back. But for whatever reason (mostly I am guessing because he was in a good mood) he worked it out himself and wrote it down on the form. He asked me to write a cheque for the penalty we had to pay for not filing the returns in time for last year. Done, and receipt given. Great!

Then came the current year, which was even more painless. Same as last year. I had filled the form earlier in pencil since I was not sure of all details so I re-filled form in 5 minutes in pen in front of him. Wrote him a cheque for the whole amount, accepted and receipt given! GREATO!! He even volunteered to show me where I could have found the address of this contact point for future reference. Unfortunately that never happened because of his dial-up connection I think.

Now all that remains is hopefully one last trip to our friendly neighborhood ARO office to submit these receipts and the Khata should be in our hands! Lets see.

UPDATE: Finally found the link to the document which lists the addresses of the BBMP contact points (including ward offices). If anyone needs it, here it is:

BBMP Contact Points