Step up tax collection, Jaiswal tells dept heads

17 October, 2018

Thane: Municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal has sent a stern message to all department heads asking them to step up revenue collections for the current fiscal and ensure annual targets are met much ahead before the financial year ends.

A review meeting was held late on Monday wherein Jaiswal is said to have instructed department heads to bring in the desired volume of revenue by the end of this quarter. The expect target income for the current fiscal year is Rs 2,031 crore while the civic body managed to earn barely Rs 496 crore by the end of September. This amount was less than last year’s income during the same period.

The directive came a day after TOI highlighted how the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) that had showed good earnings over the last three years started registering a drop in earning this financial year.

Barely 25 per cent of the annual revenue target was achieved at the end of the first half of the fiscal, revealed statistics of each of the income generating departments, including the town development office, public works and revenue earners like the water and property tax. “The poor recovery percentage at the end of the H1 this year had raised concerns as the TMC is working on several big ticket projects and a drop in earnings could mean restraint on spending or delay in payments to agencies. The TMC is working on several big projects and any delay in recovery would impact implementation of projects in the city,” said an official.

The property and water tax departments that require recovery were instructed to schedule their tasks so as to ensure their major bulk of collection is done ahead of the fiscal end, which is likely to coincide with the Lok Sabha polls. A notable volume of officials could possibly be assigned work related to elections in March, which could reduce the labour force and impact collections, said an official, who was present for the meeting.

“The commissioner took a review of the revenue recovery performance of all departments and instructed those involved in tax recovery specially to ensure the administration meets its targets by the end of this quarter in December. Focus will be on recovering arrears. We are confident of reaching the targets,” said a senior official from TMC.

The commissioner took a review to ensure the Thane Municipal Corporation meets its targets by the end of this quarter in December. Focus will be on recovering arrears. We are confident of reaching the targets

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com