Jalandhar: Civic body departments asked to hike recovery target for next fiscal

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 28

Municipal Commissioner (MC) Gautam Jain held a meeting with officials of various department heads today and reviewed the recovery of taxes and dues for this financial year and possibility to increase it in the remaining three days of the current fiscal.

He inquired about the tax recovery target for the next fiscal from officials. He asked the Building Department to increase its budget up to

Rs 60 crore for the next year. The department had to recover Rs 48 crore for the current financial year. Till now, Rs 40 crore has been recovered by the department.

Jain also asked the property tax wing of the MC to increase its budget from

Rs 45 crore to Rs 70 crore for the next financial year. Officials told him that as it would be difficult to achieve the target, so they would rather increase it to Rs 50 crore.

The MC Commissioner asked officials of the water supply wing to increase the recovery target from Rs 18 crore to Rs 22 crore for the next year. This year, officials recovered Rs 16.5 crore.

The licensing branch was suggested to increase its target to Rs 1.5 crore by the MC Commissioner.

As per information, department heads told the MC Commissioner that it was difficult to recover dues during the election period. Notably, Vikrant Verma, Zonal Commissioner, had recently held a review meeting with officials of the property tax wing of the MC. The property tax wing had so far recovered over Rs 43 crore tax dues in the present fiscal.

He asked officials to ensure maximum recovery under the one-time settlement scheme, which would end on March 31. Despite government holidays on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, property tax wing officials would recover pending dues from residents. The Accounts Department would prepare a report and present an MC Budget for the next financial year.

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