Cuttack: The civic body expects to surpass the target set for property tax in the city for the current fiscal.

Officials said the Cuttack Municipal Corporation had set a target of Rs 18 crore towards holding tax collection in 2017-18. It has recovered over 99 per cent of the target.

Till Wednesday, the civic body had collected Rs 17.84 crore towards holding tax.

Deputy commissioner Radhakrushna Rout on Thursday said holding tax collection had neared target because of unexpected payment of arrears by a government establishment.

"The Bhubananda Odisha School of Engineering has cleared arrears of Rs 8 crore," Rout said. Arrears accounted for nearly 50 per cent of the holding tax collection targeted for the current fiscal.#Additional commissioner Suman Behera saidthat government establishments had a more than 80 per cent share of the total arrears pegged at Rs 25 crore. Among government establishments, SCB hospital is the biggest holding tax defaulter with pending arrears against it estimated at over Rs 15 crore, followed by the Sishu Bhavan with arrears of Rs 1.49 crore, nearly Rs 1 crore against the Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre and Rs 2.27 crore against the Ravenshaw University.