The army has finally agreed to cough up the Rs 2.5 crore it owes to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) as service tax. On the defaulters? list are 10 establishments and the period of default ranges from five to 19 years.

In the past two decades, only once did the army open its purse for the CMC ? in March 2003, when it made an ad hoc payment of just Rs 50.94 lakh.

The decision to pay up the dues followed a communication between the Union defence minister Pranab Mukherjee and mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya in February.

On March 9, Col Malook Singh, Col Q, Headquarters Bengal Area, wrote to the mayor: ?It will be our endeavour to clear most of the outstanding service tax bills in the current financial year. Some of the bills that are more than 10 years old are being traced and will be cleared in the next fiscal.?

Municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay said: ?It is for the first time that the army has expressed its willingness to clear the dues.?

Col Singh will meet the mayor on March 20 to discuss the issue of payment. In his letter, he has also complained of ?unsatisfactory civic services?.

As for the tax dues of Science City, that run up to Rs 14.5 crore, the CMC has agreed to the organisation?s plea of rehearing the assessment case if an immediate payment of Rs 4 crore is made.