property tax

Summer Workshop: Journalism for Young Citizens Following the success of our Journalism Workshop for Citizens, we are happy to announce a special 2-day students' workshop on May 3rd and 4th, in partnership with Atta Galatta, the Koramangala bookstore. The workshop is ideal for young people (14-17 years), and will introduce them to the basics of news gathering, writing, photography. Encourage your teen or a young friend to sign up and gain insights into how the city works and how to use journalism to engage and solve problems. More info » Limited seats available, so register quick! This week’s highlight Time…

  Bengaluru this week February 11th 2016     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     Mobility is our theme for the week; we have several articles covering various aspects of commuting in Bengaluru, from why BMTC and BMRCL should not be allowed to monopolise, to shuttle aggregator ZipGo’s ongoing tussle with the Transport Department. Also, in light of the recent incident at Vibgyor school in Whitefield, we tell you what precautions you can take and what you should do when you come into contact with wildlife in the city. All this and more… This…

  Bengaluru this week February 4th 2016     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     We have lots in store for you this week! No more gas cylinders? GAIL’s plans for Bengaluru will get piped gas to your kitchen as they plan to connect the entire city, over the next few years. Do check out two important campaigns that you can easily get involved in - Green Spot Challenge and My City My Budget. We also have the first article in our series on Disappearing Professions. All this and more. This week’s highlight: GAIL…

Citizens of Mahadevapura and East zones, including Bellandur and Whitefield area are up in arms against the system that surrounds them. They pay taxes every year, but the infrastructure around them is broken. They have to fight with the system everyday for everything: good roads, clean water, garbage disposal, pollution, traffic problems and more. There is a good amount of citizen activism in the area where there is a presence of well-educated people employed in various corporates. However, the issues don’t get sorted as quickly as they should. This brings us to the question: how did a part of the…

Property tax rates are very low. Yes, I said low  I know it is not a popular thing to say, but it's the truth. In Bangalore, we pay about 0.06 per cent of the value of a residential property in annual taxes, slightly more in some cases. In Seattle, just to pick a random point of comparison, the tax rate is between 0.8 and 1.1 per cent per year. That's 14 to 19 times higher. Council tax in the UK is in the same range, maybe even higher. There's an old saying that if you pay less (peanuts) you'll get…

October 2 brings the annual ritual obeisance to the Father of the Nation, but in the last six decades we have not had a repetition of the kind of protests against injustice on the scale that Gandhiji undertook during his salt march or Quit India movement. However, this time around, there is talk of a satyagraha, no less, by citizens of Bengaluru, because judging from the meetings I have been witness to over the last three months, patience is running thin. It is, many residents are now saying, time to undertake collective action, to make our voices heard. Not against…

It is that time of year when we have to pay the property tax for the current year. There are two different types - White (Form IV) in bilingual, and Blue (Form V) For the properties, where there is no change in any field - either in category (residential / non-residential), dimensions (any addition / deletion to the structure) or usage (tenanted / self-occupied) one has to use the white form (Form.IV). Unlike previous years, the Form IV has already reached all the help centres this time. Pic: Shreyas B K The block period for this term came to an…

Citizen Matters has released Bengaluru Jeevana, a guide book of 140 pages, all in Kannada. The book is rewritten and translated from Citizen Matters' popular Living in Bengaluru English guidebook. With an identical look and feel to the English book, and priced at Rs 80, the Kannada guide is a much needed source of information for living in the city and getting things done. It contains information for everything from getting property papers to voter registration to driving licenses and recycling. For information on outlets carrying Bengaluru Jeevana near you, please call: 98455 06477.Click here to order the book online:…

It was a pourakarmika who, last Friday, provided  the answer to the vexing question of what to do about the mounds of garbage  that now characterise our city. She was sweeping up the rubbish from the road in front of my apartment -- mud and muck, mixed with soggy bits of paper, plastic, heaps of dried flowers and leaves rotting after the overnight drizzle, dog mess, the lot. -- and carefully piling it right in front of my door. This new mound by the kerbside was also blocking the path of the rain water to the drains  along the edge…

Living in Bengaluru, a new book for navigating the city was released at Jayanagar’s Prism Book Shop by MLA B N Vijayakumar accompanied by other well known Bangaloreans. This follows the launch of the book at Malleswaram on August 3rd. Jayanagar MLA B N Vijaykumar speaking at the book release at Prism Bookshop. Pic: Abhishek Angad. The guidebook is published by Oorvani Media, which is also the publisher of Citizen Matters, the newsmagazine focused on Bangalore and its neighbourhoods. The book has step-by-step guides, FAQs and information for getting things done in Bangalore. It has chapters devoted to public services…