Bhubaneswar: The civic body is planning to display the names of major holding tax defaulters at public places to shame them into paying their outstanding money.

This tried-and-tested tactic helped the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation significantly increase its revenue collection from holding tax in the last financial year.

The civic body took various steps, including public displaying of the names of defaulters, to augment its revenue from January to March this year and succeeded in collecting the highest-ever holding tax of Rs 41.7 crore. It had collected a whopping Rs 18 crore in the month of March after issuing red notices to the defaulters.

In January, the civic body had issued red notices to 284 major holding tax defaulters and targeted to collect Rs 9 crore from them.

Similarly, it made 205 petty defaulters' list public in February through its website with a target to collect Rs 3 crore outstanding amount from them.

The red notices were issued under the Orissa Public Demand Recovery Act, 1962, under which certificate cases were filed against the defaulters. In a certificate case, notices were served on the defaulters and if they continue to ignore it, then steps such as attaching bank accounts and movable and immovable property were initiated till the defaulters paid the dues.

"We have decided to take steps from the very beginning of the fiscal and started putting the name of big defaulters on the hoardings at prominent public places. We have put such hoardings at Fire Station Square and will also do the same at other places soon. We succeeded in this initiative in the past," said a civic body official.

Besides, the corporation has also been planning to go entirely online for collection of holding tax from the people. At present, the online tax collection service is available for about 13 wards of the state capital. "We made a trial run of the online payment service and now all set to implement it on city level," said the official.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said that people were continuously being asked to pay their dues before time to avoid facing legal action.