DARJEELING: The Hills municipality has chalked out a unique approach to coax defaulters into paying their taxes. It has decided to go to people instead of making them come to the office to make their payment.
According to municipality officials, the move surprisingly has become a hit as people have started paying their taxes. "The response has been positive from people.
We have made good collection in just a few days," said Amar Singh Rai, Darjeeling Municipality chairman.
The idea of going to the people had cropped up in the municipality's board of councillor's meeting. "Tax department staff made the suggestion in our board meeting. I felt it was a rather unique approach and so gave the green signal to the department," said Rai.
The process is simple.
The Municipality first identifies the taxpayers from a ward through their holding numbers. It then verifies whether they are defaulting. Once this is ascertained, tax department officials hold a meeting with the ward councillor.
"We identify beforehand who are the defaulters.The councillor concerned asks these defaulters to attend a camp in their ward. In the camp not only do we collect unpaid taxes but also make people aware of the need to comply with municipality rules. Besides, we also see that we listen to people's problems if they have any," said Rai.
The municipality has conducted camps in four wards already and has found several cases of defaulting. Several people have been defaulting for as long as eight to nine years. "There are small defaulters who have not paid their tax for one year. But, surprisingly there are also cases where a single person has dues to the amount of Rs 4 lakhs that has not been paid for over eight years," said Subhamaya Chatterjee, the tax department councillor, adding that at least sixty percent of people in Darjeeling default in tax payment.
According to records till the month of October last year, dues to the tune of over Rs 8 crore were pending on account of various taxes. It is the hotels that are the biggest defaulters according to the councilor. "One of the hotels in the town alone has Rs.17 lakh in tax pending which is additional to the earlier amount of Rs.22 lakhs," said Chatterjee. To ensure strictness, the Municipality has also decided to cut off water supply and sewage lines of the owner of building and houses who are found defaulting henceforth.
Source: Times of India
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