BHUBANESWAR: The coronavirus outbreak and 21-day lockdown at end of the fiscal has hit tax collection by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC). The civic body, which had planned to generate around Rs 80 crore revenue from trade licence, market fee, advertisements and holding tax, has not even reached the halfway mark.
“Holding or property tax is a major source of revenue for the civic body. Though we had set a target to collect Rs 60 crore towards holding tax, by March second week the collection was only Rs 29 crore,” said a senior officer of the municipal corporation.
The holding collection this year is Rs 10 crore less than last year’s figure of Rs 39 crore. “Being the last month of the fiscal, March is a crucial for us as around 40 per cent revenue flows in during this period. We usually collect Rs 40 to Rs 45 crore of the total target during this month which, however, has plunged by around 80 per cent to about Rs 11 crore due to the coronavirus crisis,” the official said.
To streamline holding tax collection process, the corporation introduced online payment system, engaged women self-help groups to collect door-to-door tax and also roped in transgenders to mobilise the pending Rs 11 crore holding tax from wilful defaulters by 2019-end.
However, use of online payment system is not encouraging, collection of holding tax by women SHGs and members of transgender community has been stopped for last two weeks to check spread of the virus.
The traders, who were supposed to pay trade licence fee, commercial tax etc are also not doing so after closure of shops and other restrictions.
The combined revenue collection from trade licence, market fee and private advertisements has remained less than Rs 10 crore, the officer added. Deputy Commissioner (Revenue), BMC, Srimanta Mishra said as manual collection is not possible in COVID times, the civic body is encouraging households and traders to pay holding tax and other fee online.