Agra civic body to levy 31 crore house tax in 120 days
The Agra Municipal Corporation (AMC), which has an annual target of collecting Rs 50 crore in house tax, has managed to levy only Rs 18.8 crore in the first eight months of this financial year. In the next four months, the civic body administration faces the task of collecting the rest Rs 31.2 crore, to fulfill the target assigned by the municipal board. According to the target, the AMC should have collected Rs 33.33 crore house tax by now, which is means it is roughly Rs 15 crore behind target. Earlier this year, the state government had directed the municipal corporations to become self-reliant by increasing overall revenue generation and spending funds accordingly. Following this, the municipal board of councilors had set Rs 50 crore as the targeted income from house tax. In the previous financial year 2017-18, AMC had recovered Rs 30 crore in house tax. According to chief tax officer AK Singh, around Rs 6 Cr has been recovered from Chatta zone, against a target of Rs 16 crore, Rs 3.80 crores has been levied from Tajganj zone, out of the targeted Rs 10 crore, Rs 4 crore, instead of Rs 14 crore was collected from Lohamandi zone, while Rs 5 crore, against a target of Rs 15 crore, was recovered from Hariparwat ward. Officers have been strictly directed to improve tax recovery in a time-bound manner. Senior councilor Ravi Mathur said, “Due to malpractices in the tax department, the situation of revenue collection is very bad. Revenue inspectors are not working properly. They are not able to provide lists of commercial premises that have major dues. The civic body’s income is likely to be badly affected this year too. The matter will be raised in the next board meeting.” Additional municipal commissioner Vijay Kumar said, “Revenue inspectors have been warned of strict action in case of negligence towards recovery of house tax. In the next month, tax department officials have been directed to ensure recovery of at least Rs 12 crore.” According to civic body records, out of the 1.80 lakh registered property owners, only 80,000 are regularly paying their taxes and have no dues pending. In the last one month, the AMC has issued notices to over 200 commercial properties for not clearing outstanding dues. Defaulters have been warned of legal action over non-payment of house tax.
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