GUILHERME ALMEIDA
gilu@herald-goa.com
What was feared all along has finally come true. Notwithstanding repeated promises handed out by city fathers and civic babus to tone up the recovery mechanism, Margao Municipal Council’s outstanding tax arrears have crossed a whopping Rs 10 crore mark this current financial year.
Civic officials admitted in private that this is perhaps the first time in recent times that the outstanding arrears have crossed Rs 10 crore. A glance at the statistics compiled by the civic body indicates that house tax has topped the list of outstanding recoveries, with the arrears on this head pegged at a whopping Rs 7.38 crore. Closely following the suit are arrears on the trade and advertisement head pegged at Rs 2.19 crore. Incidentally, the MMC has defaulted in recovering rent from its own municipal properties as evident by the arrears touching close to Rs one crore.
The alarming revenue recovery failure has not spurred the civic babus and the elected councillors to put in place a mechanism to recover the arrears. Incumbent municipal chairperson Gonzaco Rebello had promised to accord top most priority to tone up the recovery system when he took over the municipal reigns over a month ago. His predecessor Dayanand Deulkar had made a similar promise to tone up the recovery mechanism by setting up a recovery cell, but the ground reality has not changed in the civic body.
Though the civic body has received a recovery officer, it has not helped in bringing about a sea change in the recovery position. The reason: Though the Director of Municipal Administration has deputed a recovery officer, the MMC has no recovery cell manned by dedicated staff to effect recoveries on a sustainable basis.
Incidentally, the Margao municipality has not learnt the lessons from the audit reports of the previous years. The audit report for the financial year 2012-13 had pulled up the MMC system of tax recovery with the audit asserting that the tax collection was unsatisfactory leading to accumulation of tax arrears year after year. In fact, the audit report had found that the civic body had defaulted in the collection of taxes on various heads though the Goa Municipalities Act empowers the council on the revenue recovery front.
