Taxpayers in the national capital will from now on have to go to Civic Centre instead of Mayur Bhawan for filing returns and other services.

The Mayur Bhawan I-T building at Barakhamba road used to serve the salaried, non-corporate and exemptions taxpayers residing in and around Delhi. The office is being shifted to the newly built and inaugurated Civic Centre near Delhi's hub Connaught Place.

"The new desks of Mayur Bhawan building are expected to function from the middle of next week," a senior I-T officer said.

However, few other offices of the department like Audit, TDS and Publications will remain operational from the Mayur Bhawan building.

The centrally air-conditioned and spacious 'Pratyaksh Kar Bhavan' (direct taxes building) in Civic Centre will cater to more than two-thirds of the total taxpayer base of the National Capital Region (NCR).

The Central Board of Direct Taxes had purchased the office space in the Civic Centre, which also houses the headquarters of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), at a whopping cost of Rs 1,800 crore and is touted as the largest office of the department in the country.

The building will house eight Chief Commissioners and twenty-six Commissioners of the department. It will also accommodate about 2,300 I-T personnel.

The then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had inaugurated the 52,000 square metre office building in May last year.

For the benefit of the taxpayers, waiting lounges, cafeterias, banks, ATMs and a post office branch will also be operationalised here.

The new I-T office, next to the New Delhi Metro station, has separate flanks for service areas and a dedicated car parking for 1,110 vehicles.