Indian Express 25.11.2009
Professional Tax: AMC struggles to meet target of Rs 60 crore
The absence of adequate legal provisions has made collection of Professional Tax in the municipal limits a tardy affair for the civic body staff.
To add to their woes, authorities have fixed an “unrealistic” target of collecting Rs 65 crore by March 2010, which has now been scaled down to Rs 60 crore, said sources in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC).
The initial target was fixed based on the previous year’s impressive collection of Rs 43 crore as tax. But in doing so, the authorities perhaps forgot that a major portion of this had come from arrears, which is not the case this time, said the field staff.
According to them, this year’s recovery has reached Rs 38 crore so far, but there is still a huge deficit of Rs 27 crore as per the original target and Rs 22 crore according to the revised target.
The present collection also includes arrears that have trickled down and it has now become difficult to collect the remaining Rs 22 crore, they said. So far, the AMC has enrolled 94,000 individuals and registered 18,000 firms for the same.
This covers 70 per cent of the total individuals and firms put together, leaving around 20 per cent new registrations and enrolments considering that 10 per cent of them come under the exempted category, said sources.
Deputy Municipal Commissioner U C Padia admitted that the target was scaled down, but given the fact that three lakh notices had been issued to commercial property holders in the city, there would be a substantial rise in collection figures. He, however, agreed that the virtually ineffective penal provisions in the cases of non-compliance were hurdles in good collection.
All that the AMC can do against defaulters is charge 18 per cent penal interest on the amount due, which is not a big amount in any case.
A fine of Rs 2,000 also cannot play as a major deterrent, Padia said.
