Hyderabad: The state govt is now set to redraw the map of the commercial taxes (GST) department, aligning it with the city’s civic and policing framework.After reorganising urban bodies into GHMC, Cyberabad and Malkajgiri corporations, and restructuring police jurisdictions and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, the focus has now shifted to the tax department. Acting on the directions of chief minister A Revanth Reddy, officials have begun groundwork for a major realignment. The core objective is to bring uniformity in jurisdiction across key departments — civic, police and taxation — to make administration more coherent and taxpayer-friendly. “Once the exercise is finalised, the proposal will be placed before the chief minister for a final decision,” officials said. At present, while GHMC operates with 12 zones, the commercial taxes department functions through nine divisions and 80 circle offices across Greater Hyderabad. These divisions include Abids, Begumpet, Charminar, Punjagutta, Secunderabad and Saroornagar, with significant variation in size and workload.Punjagutta, for instance, has 13 circles, whereas the Hyderabad rural division has only nine. Under the proposed plan, the number of tax zones will be increased to 12, mirroring GHMC’s structure, while retaining the existing 80 circles. Jurisdictional tweaks are also on the cards — Tarnaka circle, currently under Secunderabad, is likely to be shifted to the Uppal zone. Some areas within the Outer Ring Road from Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda divisions may be brought into the Greater Hyderabad fold. Additionally, parts of the Charminar division could be merged into a newly-proposed Shamshabad zone, in line with GHMC’s expansion. The move, however, comes with its own set of challenges. Unlike civic or police departments, restructuring tax jurisdictions involves reworking extensive taxpayer databases and TIN-linked records, making the transition complex and time-consuming.
