Kolkata, the seventh largest city in India, is one of the country’s cultural wonders. Now, thanks to innovative taxation and urban services reforms, it is on its way to becoming a smart city.

Kolkata officially shifted to an online unit-area based property tax system on 1 April 2017.

The introduction of this state-of-the-art system is a milestone moment for the city, which for the past two decades has partnered with ADB on urban reforms and infrastructure development.

When we recently listened to Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, head of the Kolkata Municipal Commission (KMC), explain the city’s plans to become “smart” this year, we couldn’t help but recall how 17 years ago our colleagues had sat in the same office discussing the financial and urban services reform conditions for our first urban project loan for KMC.

Back then, KMC was still using accrual-based manual accounting and had never had its books audited.