Team Herald
MARGAO: Margao Municipal Council Chief Officer Y B Tavde has expressed confidence that the council would be able to recover most of the arrears during the current financial year given the fact that MMC is amongst the leading councils in Goa to recover arrears.
The MMC is to recover more than Rs 9.5 crore by way of arrears as per figures revealed by the Directorate of Municipal Administration. However, Tavde opined that the figures may not be the current figures. “Recovery done at present will not be reflected there,” he said.
He said the council has constituted a special cell to recover the arrears and is continuously on a drive for tax collection and therefore was confident that they would recover the pending dues.
Admitting that the council has around Rs 6.5 crore as arrears by way of house tax, he said, “The intensive driver going on currently to collect taxes will reduce this figure drastically.”
The arrears of Rs 1.6 crore by way of trade tax will also be reduced, particularly in view of the meeting scheduled by the Chairperson with the traders, he said. “The tax payment will be dealt at the May 5 meeting convened by the chairperson,” he said adding that even the arrears of Rs 37 lakh from signboard tax would be solved at the same meeting.
He said the Rs 3.61 lakh arrears shown towards sopo was misleading as it could be due to the fact that many people who were paying sopo earlier have now converted into shops and are paying rent and the council officials are currently surveying the market to find out exactly how many shops are there.
He said that all the markets under the council would be surveyed to find out how many shops are there in each market and also to find out whether the person to whom the shop was allotted initially has sold or sub-let the premises.
The municipal officials also would checking the trade licence of every shop as many shops that were sub-let or sold were not given trade license in the past.
