The Hindu              11.12.2013 

Corporation’s revenue goes up

Financial Year 2013-14 is proving to be good for the
Coimbatore Corporation as the results of the measures it has initiated
have begun to bear fruit. According to sources in the Coimbatore
Corporation, since April 2013 there has been a steady increase in
revenue collection except in June 2013, when there was a marginal
decrease by 1.91 per cent.

The revenue collection
includes money collected for property tax, water charges, dangerous and
offensive trade license fee, professional tax, rent and money collected
for assets leased.

In April this year the Corporation
saw its overall revenue go up by 24.15 per cent and property tax
collection by 8.55 per cent as against April last year. The highest
increase in overall collection was in August — 59.43 per cent. The
property tax collection for the period went up by 11.17 per cent. (For
month-wise comparative statement for the first half-year see table)

Corporation sources said the increase in overall collection was due to increase in various tax components.

As
for property tax collection the increase in collection was not only
because of increase in assessments but also the drive carried out by
bill collectors.

The civic body asked its field staff
to go on a ward-wise drive to ensure that there were no properties
outside the tax net and that properties were under the right assessment
category — residences as residences and not as commercial establishments
and vice versa.

The exercise had resulted in the
number of assessments going up by 23,510 by the end of the 2012-13
financial year and 18,391 in the past few months, said Mayor S.M.
Velusamy.

The increase in assessments also saw an
increase in revenue collection. At the end of the first half-year on
September 30, 2013 the increase in property tax collection was Rs. 11.77
crore.

The sources said that Corporation had also
carried out a similar drive for collecting vacant land tax. Plus, at the
time of approving building plans the Town Planning wing coordinates
with the revenue wing so as to ensure that it approves of the plan only
after the vacant land tax dues are cleared.

The Mayor said that in the past seven months the Corporation had increased the vacant land tax assessments by 4,994.

For
improving the professional tax collection, the Corporation conducted
camps asking eligible persons to volunteer to become assessees, spoke to
traders’ and industries’ associations and also collected data from
other government departments like the Tangedco, Employees State
Insurance Corporation, Commercial Tax to ensure that the tax net was
cast wide.

The sources said that the increase in
revenue would translate in to more development works for the Corporation
as funding agencies look at repayment capacity before sanctioning or
funding projects.