MARGAO: Transverse Technology Pvt Ltd has finally established that the Margao Municipal Council has not assessed the tax payers properly and has been collecting less taxes.
MMC Chairperson Dr Babita Prabhudessai while welcoming the findings hoped the council can rise to the occasion and revamp its house to increase revenue collection.
A GI survey of Ward No 14, which is the most thickly populated ward, given the fact that the two main markets of Margao come within its jurisdiction, was undertaken as a pilot project and seven surveyors of the company visited every household in the ward for about three months to collect the data, which has now been tabulated.
The survey has exposed the fact that the MMC officials have not updated their records regularly due to which there has been a lot of revenue loss. The survey has clearly exposed that there are many commercial activities being carried out in premises registered with the MMC as residential premises.
The company used the Google Map to visit each and every household in the ward to collect date relating to house tax, trade tax, signages and sanitary tax. Surprisingly, as per the MMC records, there were only 4400 premises in the ward; Transverse has found 930 more premises in this ward alone.
Some other anomalies noted by the company is that the standard old charges of Rs 100 or Rs 200 are charged to old buildings that have been renovated even though they have increased the number of units in the building following renovations.
While the MMC expects Rs 40,30,340 as house tax, in reality it can get about Rs 3.16 crore. Similarly, while it is expecting Rs 8,46,472 as trade tax from the 1617 commercial establishments registered with it, in reality it can get Rs 12,34,373 as trade tax from 2358 commercial establishments.
MMC is also losing revenue from signages, as according to its records, only 1401 sq mts of signages exist while in reality the signages occupy 3960 sq mts. While MMC is expecting to collect Rs 84,07,200 as sanitation fee, the actual amount that can be collected is Rs 1,48,56,764.
Transverse has also exposed the MMC’s failure in keeping proper records of the occupants of the premises of the various buildings in its jurisdiction. For example the Reliance Trade Centre building that is close to the MMC building has 156 premises of which 45 are occupied while the others are closed and only 15 of the 45 have got a trade licence. This means that 30 businesses are being carried out without paying the MMC any tax.
Similarly, at Ashoka Building which is an old building, there are 16 premises of which five are not operating but 9 of the 11 operating have trade licence while two are carrying out business without paying trade licence to the MMC.
Another lacunae exposed by the company is that the MMC does not have any record of the numerous shops in New Market and Gandhi Market that have been sub-let by the original people to whom they were allotted and have been further sub-let many times though a record is not available.
In fact the surveyors pointed out that this lack of records of sub-letting was one of the main reason for the long time the survey took.
MMC Chairperson Dr Babita Prabhudessai while admitting that the disclosure has been a shock said the council has already issued notices to around 40 people from Gandhi Market, who had sub let the shops allotted to them and hoped the Council will be able to clear the cobwebs and start a fresh in the new financial year that is due to begin in a few days.
