Patna, Dec. 15: Demonetisation has worked wonders for the cash-strapped Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC).

The PMC collected Rs 11.78 lakh today, the last day of accepting scrapped Rs 500 currency at public utilities. According to PMC record, there's been a five times increase in holding tax collection of the PMC since November 9.

"Since November 9, we have collected Rs 5.24 crore. Last year in November, we had collected Rs 1.46 crore. But this year in November, after demonetisation set in, around Rs 3 crore was deposited in the PMC as holding tax. The rest of the holding tax has been deposited in scrapped Rs 500 currency since November 25," said a senior PMC official.

Though Bihar Municipal Act, 2007, envisages general survey of holdings after five years, it has not been done in the PMC area since 1996.

"We have records of around 3 lakh holdings in the city but 2 lakh holdings are not registered. In 2015, around 1 lakh people had filed property tax returns, of which around 55,000 were registered with us and the remaining 45,000 peop le were new holdings. The remaining 1 lakh people registered with us did not pay the property tax," said the official.

Another official said the last fiscal they had fixed the target of collecting Rs 60 crore holding tax, out of which they were only able to collect Rs 35 crore. "This fiscal, we have fixed a target of achieving Rs 95 crore holding tax and so far around Rs 31 crore have been collected," he said.

Demonetisation proved to be a boon for the income tax department in Bihar, as it has collected around twice the amount in advance tax for the quarter ending December 15, in comparison to the previous quarter ending September 15.

"We cannot give the exact numbers, but we can easily say that the income tax payment has doubled this quarter in comparison to previous quarter. Many of our assessees have decided to pay taxes for the next quarter also," a senior IT official said.

The official said the sudden growth in tax payments could be an outcome of demonetisation, as payments are made into designated bank accounts, and banks are still accepting old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations. The final figures would be released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes and principal chief commissioner of income tax for Bihar and Jharkhand.

The energy department was accepting electricity bill payment in scrapped notes till today, though there was no rush of customers.

Officials said the old notes were being accepted continuously after demonetisation was announced hence there was no rush on the last day (Thursday), but people did pay their bills on time and in old notes. They were unable to tell the amount of old currency notes that came to them and said final figures will be received in a couple of days. "We have seen a growth of around seven per cent in bill collection for November in comparison to October. Our collections were around Rs 25 crore in October, which climbed to around Rs 27 crore in November," said R. Lakshmanan, managing director, Bihar State Power Generation Company Limited.