Bhubaneswar, May 14: The civic body will organise special camps for collection of existing trade licence fees and distribution of new ones from May 22.

Civic body officials hope this move will boost the city's tax collection. The first such camp will be held at the Rental Colony community centre at Nayapalli. In the later phases, it will be held at Chandraskharpur BDA Market Complex, the civic body's zonal office near Kalpana Square, Siddheswar Yuvak Sangh at Jagamara, Lakshmisagar Yatri Nivas and Acharya Vihar community centre. The camps will continue till May 31.

According to the action plan, three zonal deputy commissioners, tax collectors, data entry operators and other revenue cell officials will be involved with the camp.

"We plan to organise special camps for those traders who have not obtained the licence so far. Trade licences need to be renewed every fiscal. However, many traders here do not abide by that law. We want to bring them into the fold through these camps. If they don't show up, we will cancel their licences," said the civic body's additional commissioner Alok Kar.

He said the officials would take the help of voluntary organisations to bring traders into the fold. "Not only can traders renew their licenses at the camps, but also apply for new ones. The camps will provide a one-stop solution to them," said Kar.

The step comes on the back of a review meeting on revenue collection and performance of tax collectors in February.

Officials felt the need to strengthen the revenue collection system from trade licences since it was revealed that many traders were running their businesses without obtaining the required licences from the civic body.

"There is no exact data on the number of such traders, but it is evidently very high," said a civic body official.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has set a target of increasing its revenue collection to Rs 130 crore this fiscal. This money will be collected from different taxes, including holding tax, user's fees, advertisement, trade licence, parking fees and market rents. The municipal corporation had collected only Rs 3.91 crore from trade licence during the previous fiscal.

"We are taking measures to strengthen revenue collection. We are making efforts to strengthen the revenue collection system. The special camps will help us in achieving this goal," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.