Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
The Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) municipal commissioner G Sreekanth, on Monday, hinted at taking stern action against bill collectors recording poor performance in the recovery of taxes for more than one week.
The municipal commissioner has been reviewing the property and water tax collection, zone wise, daily for the past many days. The order has created a sensation in the municipal corporation headquarters.
The municipal corporation’s jurisdiction is divided into 10 zones and each zone comprises 22,000 to 25,000 properties. To simplify the recovery, the municipal corporation has created a blog of 2,000 properties. Each employee has deployed the recovery officer to levy property tax on old and new untaxed properties found during the survey; serve demand notice of the tax to the property-holders; to record the changes in utility of properties spotted during the survey, etc.
It may be noted that the CSMC has roped in the services of 12-15 bill collectors from private agencies in the jurisdiction of each zone office. These bill collectors are working under the supervision of CSMC’s permanent staff and personnel.
The financial year starts from April 1 to March 31. If the property-holder does not pay the current year’s annual tax in the first three months (April to June), then 24 per cent of interest is levied upon him. While, the compounding interest is levied against the outstanding tax dues.
Earlier, the municipal commissioner has already announced that there will be no concession in interest amount. Presently, the civic chief is reviewing the collection of tax (ward wise) daily in the morning. He questions the reason for the poor recovery to each personnel. If there is no improvement in collection even after some time, then he will be sent home, underlined the civic chief.