Seems to have no plan to recover tax arrears
TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: The Cuncolim Municipal Council has finally withdrawn a fixed deposit certificate to pay the infrastructure tax amounting to Rs 18 lakh, but the civic body seems to have no plan in place to recover the huge tax arrears pegged at a whopping Rs 85 lakh.
Cuncolim Municipal Chairperson Devendra Desai admitted that the civic body would not have touched the fixed deposit certificate if the municipal administration had recovered the huge tax arrears staring at the civic body. “I had been pursuing with the Chief Officer Pravin Barad the recovery of the huge outstanding arrears, but there’s no change in the ground reality. The civic body is facing a difficult period on the financial front and we would ask the municipal administration to recover the tax arrears at the earliest”, Desai said.
Incidentally, the CMC chairperson pointed out that the civic body had not yet paid the bonus amounting to Rs two lakh to the civic employees this time round because of the financial constrains. “The Chief Officer has been asked to launch a drive to recover the house tax arrears on the priority basis so that funds can be arranged to pay the bonus to the employees”, he said.
The civic body had to resort to the withdrawal of the fixed deposit certificate before maturity in order to arrange the funds to pay the infrastructure tax. “Unless we paid the infrastructure tax, we were not receiving the NOC to auction the 13 shops and establishments in the commercial complex cum community hall. Once auctioned, we expect to generate a rent of around Rs 2.5 lakh by leasing the 13 shops”, he added.
