CivicPay: letting citizens pay property tax and get certificates without standing in a queue
A municipal corporation collected property tax at counters, issued certificates after several visits, and had a property register full of gaps. We built CivicPay: online property search and tax payment, self-assessment with verification, birth, death and trade certificates online, a digitised property register and collection dashboards — so citizens queue less and the city collects more.
A queue outside the zone office
On the last days of the property tax rebate period, the queue outside CivicPay's zone offices stretched around the block. Citizens waited hours to pay; others gave up and paid late. Certificates required multiple visits. Meanwhile, the property register missed thousands of properties that had never been assessed.
“Citizens want to pay. We make it hard for them.”
The register problem
We studied the property register and the counter process. Records were incomplete, owner names outdated, and many properties had no geographic location. Any online payment system would only be as good as this register, so cleaning and mapping it became part of the project.
- Properties missing from the register
- Outdated owner and address details
- No map location for most properties
- Certificates requiring multiple visits
Pay online, fix the register as we go
Citizens can find their property by number, owner name or on a map, see their assessed tax and pay by UPI or card with an instant receipt. Where details are wrong, they can request corrections with documents, which field staff verify.
A field surveyor app maps properties with photos and GPS, identifying unassessed properties. Certificates — birth, death, trade licences — are applied for online and issued with digital signatures.
The team
Data cleaning and mapping needed a dedicated data engineer alongside the product team.
Corporation stakeholders and phased launch.
Bilingual citizen portal and staff tools.
Portal, payments, certificates and dashboards.
Citizen app and surveyor app.
Register cleaning, mapping and migration.
6 people in total, working as one team.
Decisions we made
Minuted with the corporation's IT cell and revenue department.
Wait for a clean register?
- Clean the register first
- Launch payments and fix the register in parallel
Our call: Launch payments and fix the register in parallel. Waiting would delay citizen benefit for years. Corrections and surveys improved the register continuously.
Paper or digital certificates?
- Printed certificates
- Digitally signed certificates
Our call: Digitally signed certificates. Digital signatures made certificates verifiable and removed repeat visits.
Hosting?
- Commercial cloud
- Government-empanelled cloud
Our call: Government-empanelled cloud. Required for government data and payments.
Every feature, module by module
Everything that shipped for citizens, staff and administrators.
- 01Property search
By number, owner or map.
- 02Online tax payment
UPI and card with instant receipts.
- 03Self-assessment
Declare property details for verification.
- 04Correction requests
Update details with documents.
- 05Certificate applications
Birth, death and trade licences online.
- 06Hindi and English
Fully bilingual.
- 07Counter console
Assisted payments for walk-in citizens.
- 08Verification queue
Corrections and applications verified.
- 09Field survey app
Properties mapped with photos and GPS.
- 10Certificate issuance
Digitally signed certificates.
- 11Digitised property register
Cleaned and migrated records.
- 12GIS mapping
Properties on the city map.
- 13Unassessed property detection
Surveyed properties missing from records.
- 14Change history
Every ownership and assessment change.
- 15Collection dashboards
Collections by ward and zone.
- 16Defaulter lists
Arrears with reminders.
- 17Payment reconciliation
Gateway settlements reconciled.
- 18Role-based access
Citizens, staff, surveyors and officials.
- 19Audit trail
All changes recorded.
Launch
Online payment launched ahead of the rebate deadline, promoted on tax demand notices with a QR code. The survey continued ward by ward, adding newly identified properties to the register.
- Weeks 1–3Discovery
Counters observed; register analysed.
- Weeks 4–6Design
Citizen portal and survey app.
- Weeks 7–16Build
Portal, payments, certificates, survey and register.
- Weeks 17–20Migration
Register cleaned and migrated.
- Weeks 21–24City-wide launch
Before the rebate deadline.
What we learned
Fix the data alongside the service. Online payment exposed register errors, and correction requests helped fix them.
Put the service where citizens already are. A QR code on the tax notice drove adoption.
- Next.js
- React Native
- NestJS
- PostgreSQL with PostGIS
- Payment gateway with UPI
- Digital signatures on certificates
- Government-empanelled cloud
