The Hindu 02.05.2013
GHMC hit by cheque ‘bouncer’
About a month after crowing about the highest ever
property tax collection of nearly Rs.800 crore, the Greater Hyderabad
Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is to issue notices to 400-odd taxpayers
for defaulting on payments. Apparently, the cheques issued before the
last month end deadline had bounced.
Criminal cases
“It
amounts to about Rs.5 crore. We are going to deal with these
misdemeanours very seriously. We are securing information from the
deputy commissioners concerned so that criminal cases can be booked
against the defaulters,” said Additional Commissioner (Finance) K. Ashok
Reddy.
Commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu had earlier
made it clear that while there were cheque bounce cases in the previous
years too, this time the civic body was not going to take it lying down
and would follow it up with criminal cases against tax defaulters.
Similarly,
efforts were on to look into the long-pending property tax cases stuck
in courts. All the standing counsels have been asked to take steps for
proper reconciliation by mid-May so that a substantial sum could flow
into the civic body’s coffers.
Tax collection could
have easily crossed the Rs.1,000-crore mark if the municipal corporation
had managed to collect the requisite dues from Central and State
government properties. The State could give just Rs.20 crore of the
projected Rs.70 crore before the financial year 2012-2013 ended on March
31. Collection from Central government properties too had been paltry
because of the conflict with South Central Railway over the “service
charge” (75 p.c. of property tax as mandated by the Supreme Court).
South Central Railway had paid less than one-third of the demand of
Rs.16 crore.
There have been quite a few cases where
government undertakings like the APSRTC have not paid the demand figure
raised while turf battles between APTransco and Central Power
Distribution Company Limited have blocked at least Rs. 4 crore, explain
senior officials.
Profession tax
From
last year collection of profession tax was supposed to have been the
GHMC’s job, but most of the money thus collected within the city limits
went into the government treasury.
While the corporation expected Rs.100 crore to Rs. 300 crore, the figure has been just Rs.50 crore.
Corporation to issue notices to 400-odd taxpayers for defaulting on payments as cheques issued by them bounce.
