A carpenter makes wheels for the chariot of Lord Jagannath for the upcoming rath yatra in Puri. Picture by Sarat Patra

Cuttack, June 15: The income tax department has set a target of collecting Rs 10,000 crore from the state for the 2013-14 fiscal, said a member of the central board of direct taxes, P.S. Behuria.

Inaugurating the new income tax building at Tulsipur here yesterday, Behuria said that the tax collection target from the state had been increased by 19 per cent this year.

“There is a target of collecting additional tax revenue of Rs 2,500 crore from Odisha while at the same time efforts will be made to improve infrastructure and create more posts. Tax revenue worth Rs 8,500 crore was collected from the state in the last fiscal,” Behuria told.

Behuria further said that with centralisation of systems and inauguration of the new building of the income tax department, senior officials should change the image of the department from adversarial to a tax payer-friendly one.

Steps will also be taken to widen the tax base as at present there are only 3.5 lakh tax assessees in Cuttack city.

The new building of the income tax department in Cuttack has come up in an area of 60,000sqft.

The six-storey building of the income tax department has been designed and constructed to accommodate around 150 employees.

An aaykar seva kendra has also been set up for better data management and information sharing through networking.

“The proposal for the construction of the new income tax building was mooted in 2002 and the construction work began in 2009. The total cost of the project was more than Rs 18 crores,” said chief commissioner of income tax of the state Santosh Kumar Srivastava.