06.08.2022

Since April 2022, the research team has been in conversation with the Greater Chennai Corporation and the Department of Municipal Administration to develop interventions to improve the enforcement and collection of property tax in Chennai. I had the opportunity to join some of these conversations between the Principal Investigators and our government counterparts, which was a great way to quickly learn about government officials’ priorities and concerns.

The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is the largest urban local body in the state of Tamil Nadu, and contributes 35% of the state’s total property tax revenue. However, property tax revenues in Tamil Nadu have not kept up pace with other states in recent years, motivating the government to implement substantial property tax hikes earlier this year. To complement these state-wide tax rate revisions, the GCC has expressed interest in tackling other challenges contributing to low property tax collection, especially identifying and assessing un-assessed and under-valued properties. Over the summer, I will be helping out on a project to help improve property tax collection and bring properties into the tax net. Since the project is in its early stages, I am looking forward to contributing to discussions about research design and gaining first-hand experience in the coordination, exploratory data analysis, and pilot development required to launch a research project of this magnitude. The project is also very closely related to my research interests at the intersection of public finance and development, specifically my interest in understanding how to increase tax revenues in resource-constrained settings so that spending on social protection programs can be increased.

Incorporating a gender lens

Property tax revenues are used to fund several local public goods which directly impact women’s lives, including primary health centers, schools, roads, street lighting, public transport infrastructure, and sanitation. Our study will help the government understand which property tax reforms should be implemented at scale in order to raise revenues that can be used to improve the delivery of public goods that increase women’s welfare. For example, the Greater Chennai corporation has existing projects to improve women’s safety by installing CCTVs on public transport and new streetlights. The Chennai corporation is also renovating girls’ toilets in government schools, since previous evidence suggests that poor access to toilets is one of the factors that causes adolescent girls to drop out of school. Finally, government-run primary health centers provide ante-natal and post-natal care, access to contraception, and screenings for cervical and breast cancer. Higher property tax revenues would help the Chennai corporation spend more on all these public services that promote gender equality.

The state government of Tamil Nadu has also shown an active interest in issues related to gender equality and a willingness to work with researchers to test policy interventions that increase citizens’ welfare. In 2021, the government released the Tamil Nadu State New Policy for Women outlining the state government’s objectives to reduce gender equality over the next five years by improving women’s nutritional outcomes, increasing female enrollment in secondary and tertiary education, providing skill training to recent graduates and women who wish to re-enter the labor force after having children, improving women’s access to credit, improving the coverage of women-headed households under existing social protection schemes run by the government, and bridging the gender gap in internet access. I am looking forward to engaging with government stakeholders involved in implementing these interventions to learn more about the challenges they have been facing and to identify areas where further research is needed before programs can be scaled-up across the state.