JULIO D’SILVA
In the last two months the Margao Municipal Council has collected a little above Rs. 2.72 crore by way of house tax and garbage fees. This amount was generated by residents coming voluntarily to the MMC office and due to some drive launched by the council.
“Generally during the summer months of April and May a lot of people voluntarily come to the council to pay their various taxes,” said MMC Chief Officer Johnson Fernandes while disclosing the figures of the taxes paid by the people.
The total amount paid in the month of April was Rs. 1,56,18,919 of which Rs. 72,33,900 was paid towards garbage collection fees while Rs. 62,37,558 was paid towards the House tax fees. An additional amount of Rs. 20,82,222 was received towards the arrears of house tax that people paid this year.
In the month of May the total amount received by the council was Rs. 1,16,14,666 of which Rs. 49,84,200 was towards the garbage collection fees and Rs. 50,50,990 was towards the house tax. Besides, an amount of Rs. 15,36,079 was received as payment of arrears of house tax in that month.
The house tax received so far is only about Rs. 1.50 crore which is a miniscule amount of the Rs. 9 crore receivable by way of house tax as projected in the MMC budget for the current year. Similarly only around Rs. 1.22 crore is received by way of garbage collection fees as against the budget projection of Rs. 5 crore.
“We shall have to probably revive the system we had adopted last year to collect taxes but right now the staff is busy with the monsoons and some other official work and will take some steps very shortly,” said Johnson.
It may be recalled that Johnson was appointed Chief Officer of the MMC with the specific purpose of improving the financial position of the council with the main focus being improved tax collection. In fact after he took over in November 2017 he prepared seven teams of two staff members who were given the task of going to each and every house and presenting a demand note of the tax payable by that particular person.
In the last four months of the last financial year the tax collection was nearly Rs. 4.5 crore due to this exercise and the outstanding dues to the council had dropped. Interestingly Rs. 16 lakhs was collected as trade tax through the same exercise.
“We noticed that people would pay the taxes there and there if possible whenever the demand note was presented and hence the exercise was a success because of the inherent honesty of the people who believe that they have to pay what they should pay,” said the chief officer indicating that the same exercise may be re-launched soon after the monsoons.
