Property tax collection during the Early Bird program may be affected by the bifurcation of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation into three different corporations namely GHMC, Cyberabad Municipal Corporation and Malkajgiri Municipal Corporation.
The Early Bird program offers a five percent discount on the total annual tax payable if paid within the first month of the year. Every year the scheme earns big reward for GHMC as property owners try to avail the concession by paying effortlessly online.
This year, many consumers are facing problems in paying the tax because the website has undergone changes and the tax payment appears under the name of Core Urban Region Economy instead of the concerned company. “Despite several attempts, I have not been able to pay the tax online as the payment options are not working. I kept getting an error message that the selected payment gateway is under development,” said Srinivas Nayak, a resident of Chintalkunta.
The same complaint was heard from several others. All payment options are displayed under one button. If you still proceed with payment withdrawal, you will see an error message.
The SMS blast, which would send customized links to every taxpayer for an easy payment, has yet to launch, a week into the Early Bird window. While a few owners in the GHMC limits have received these messages, a large number are yet to receive them. In Cyberabad and Malkajgiri, SMS messaging has not yet been launched.
“Until last year, we used to pay tax through the Bill Collector, who visited us once a month. We have not received any message or reference till now,” said Vinayak, another property owner from Nizampet. Nizampet was a separate corporation until last year and one of the 27 urban local bodies to be merged with the GHMC by the end of 2025. It is now part of the Cyberabad Municipal Corporation.
Last year, GHMC raised a total of ₹900.93 crore in the Early Bird program, which was 44% of the total collection of ₹2,038 crore in the previous year. In the financial year 2025-26, the collection for the CURE area was only ₹ 2,558.8 crore, which is much less when compared to the expansion in extent from 650 square kilometers to over 2,000 square kilometers.
Of the total, the highest ₹ 1,000.36 crore was collected from the purview of Cyberabad Municipal Corporation, while Malkajgiri Municipal Corporation accounted for a mere ₹ 562.62 crore. The newly minted GHMC collections stood at ₹995.82 crore, which is only ₹94.89 crore or 9.6% more than the previous form’s Early Bird collections. This despite a one-off settlement scheme that included a 90% waiver of fines and increased enforcement towards the end of the year.
Published – 06 Apr 2026 21:02 IST
