The world wide web has made all of our lives easier. Thanks to advances in the internet, we are able to communicate with people across the world in a matter of moments, shop from the comfort of our own homes and even conduct entire financial transactions without ever needing to step into the bank. Processing payments online is something we can all do in our sleep. So when the Navelim panchayat announced the launch of its online portal for the payment of house tax and light tax for the convenience of its villagers, it is, of course, a step in the right direction. However, attend any gram sabha meeting in Goa and you will no doubt hear of outstanding house tax amounting to lakhs of rupees yet to be recovered from the villagers. Dive into the details and you will find that while some payments remain pending on account of home owners living at different locations, most are due to procrastination and neglect, whether deliberate or otherwise. The question thus to be asked is whether these accumulating arrears are on account of an inconvenient or time-consuming panchayat process or simply a lack of desire to pay what’s owed to the government on the part of the homeowner. If the latter holds true, the online portal – no matter how convenient – will not do much to effectively collect house tax from the homeowners. Instead, panchayats need to come up with ways to recover the arrears, and fast.
