Bhubaneswar: The civic body has set a record by collecting Rs 135 crore as revenue from various taxes and fees in the 2017-18 financial year. In the fiscal previous to that - 2016-17, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation could only barely cross the Rs 100-crore mark in revenue collection.
Revenue collection this time has been considered as the best-ever performance of the civic body. "We had undertaken a number of initiatives to augment our revenue collection and those yielded results," said an official of the civic body's tax wing.
According to the tax collection statement of the civic body for 2017-18, it has collected Rs 41 crore only from holding tax, followed by Rs 17.30 crore from advertisement charges. The municipal corporation also collected Rs 2.51 crore from parking fees and Rs 2.93 crore out of market rent.
The civic body crossed Rs 100 crore-mark in total revenue collection for the first time in its history in the 2016-17 fiscal. "We are constantly improving our tax collection as we could take some stringent measures. We got hold of major holding tax defaulters and started taking action against them. Now, they have started paying tax on time," said the official.
However, the civic body failed when it came to collection of user charges from citizens. The collection status revealed that the civic body collected nothing towards user charges while the collection on this count in the 2016-17 fiscal was a mere Rs 9 crore. "We need to improve," he said.
Another source said the civic body's revenue collection could increase if it took stringent measures to improve collection of user charges. "User charges are basically fees collected for maintaining sanitation. People are still reluctant to pay this fee. We need to be stricter this time," said another official of the civic body.
Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said they were hoping to better the performance in the future. "We are working on collecting all the fees through online mode. The holding tax collection process will go entirely online soon. We will also make similar attempts for other tax collections."
