Amritsar MC lags in revenue recovery targets

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Amritsar, November 20

Though various departments of the Municipal Corporation (MC) are lagging in collecting bills, taxes, charges and fee against the recovery targets set by the Department of Local Governments, officials of the Municipal Town Planning (MTP) wing are hopeful of meeting the targets. The fiscal target of the MTP Department is Rs 45 crore and the department has so far collected about Rs 32 crore. The department has four more months in this financial year to reach the target. The MTP wing officials claimed that they would achieve the targets.

The sewerage and water supply wing of the MC is far away from the recovery targets. The annual target of the sewerage and water supply wing is Rs 35 crore. But so far only Rs 5.98 crore has been collected by the wing. The wing has a great potential to increase the revenue of the MC. It has to collect sewerage sharing charges of colonies and outstanding bills of commercial and residential establishments. The wing can collect crores of rupees as a large number of sewerage and water supply bills are pending.

The Property Tax Department of the MC is also lagging in target recovery. The department has a target of Rs 45 crore for this financial year. Till September 30, the department had collected tax worth Rs 24.90 crore. But in the last 50 days, the department had collected only Rs 80 lakh tax. The property tax wing had announced to seal the properties of defaulters but did not take any action.

Similarly, the Licence Branch of the MC targeted to collect Rs 7.50 crore in current fiscal. But the department has so far collected only Rs 76 lakh. The department has a potential to collect a good amount from big commercial establishments. The Estate Wing of the MC is also far behind the set targets. No recovery of funds witnessed from Tehbazari of the land department and sale of properties. The advertising department is lagging far behind the set target.

MC Joint Commissioner Hardeep Singh stated that the income of the MC would be increased. He claimed that hearings of property tax scrutiny cases would be conducted in the coming days.