31 civic personnel punished for dereliction of duty

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

Sensation prevailed after the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) administrator, G Sreekanth, ordered deduction of one day's salary of 31 personnel for their failure in effective implementation of the drive to recover property tax and water tax.

With an aim to meet the target collection of taxes and enhance the recovery the municipal commissioner has also instructed to constitute a special task force (STF); prepare the list of big default tax-payers and publish their names in the local dailies.

It so happened that the civic chief has provided the details of each property on google sheet to the recovery team for their convenience in recovering property and water taxes without any hurdles. However, he was disappointed over the poor implementation of the drive.

On Monday, the civic chief reviewed the collection status and found that some employees of different zone offices failed to collect a single pie. Hence in a drastic measure, G Sreekanth ordered to deduct

Rs 1,000 (or one day salary) from the salary of regular employees and one day salary of the contractual employees.

The deputy commissioner Aparna Thete confirmed that the civic chief has ordered publishing the list of big default tax-payers in the newspapers; serving alert notices to them and initiating the process of seizing the properties. He issued the orders today (Jan 8). Soon, the CSMC will also be forming an independent STF to boost the recovery figures, she said.

Target collection of Rs 260 crore

The CSMC vows to collect Rs 260 crore property tax in the current financial year. It may be noted that the CSMC has recorded a collection of Rs 100 crore (property and water tax) in the first week of December. Three months are left for the conclusion of the current financial year. The civic squad is also aiming at collecting at least Rs 150 crore from the old dues, it is learnt.