Berhampur Municipal Corporation

Berhampur, July 29: The local civic body has decided to organise camp courts at various places to collect holding tax in August following the success of its door-to-door campaign for collection of outstanding trade licence fee last month.

The civic body managed to collect as much as Rs 17 lakh towards outstanding trade licence fee in June.

“We will launch camp courts at various places after August 15. I am hopeful of a good result,” said Ajit Kumar Mishra, commissioner of the Berhampur Municipal Corporation.

All officials dealing with holding tax will be present at the camp courts, where citizens will get a chance to settle their dues and get their grievances heard as well.

“Lakhs of rupees are outstanding as holding tax in various wards of the town. Our repeated appeals to the public to clear their holding tax dues have failed to yield good response. We hope many disputes and cases regarding holding tax will also be settled at the camp courts,” he said.

“The failure to collect holding tax on time has pushed the civic body into severe financial crunch. We have now decided to display a list of the defaulters in each ward of the civic body,” the commissioner said.

The corporation has been facing financial problems for the past few months because of its inability to collect revenue on time. It is falling short of Rs 1.60 crore every month.

There are about 60,000 holdings within the limits of the corporation. Though the corporation’s annual target for holding tax collection is about Rs 3.66 crore, it always falls drastically short of its aim. The holding tax collection was Rs 1.25 crore last year, which fell short of the target by Rs 2.40 crore.

To further compound the civic body’s problems, it is in the dark about many new and upcoming houses as most people approach the Berhampur Development Authority for approval of their residential construction plans. According to an unofficial estimate, only about 35 per cent of the constructions in the town fall in the civic body’s purview of holding tax collection.

Huge outstanding amount from various government sectors has also alarmed the civic body officials. Against the due arrear of Rs 1.4 crore from the government sector last year, the corporation could manage to collect only Rs 16,374.

Similarly, the corporation has so far been able to collect only Rs 17 lakh as trade licence fee against an annual target of Rs 3.24 crore.