Despite drastic changes and a rigorous tax recovery drive initiated by Administrator G. Shrikanth, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation has failed to achieve the tax collection target this financial year.
The target fixed for the financial year 2023-24 was ₹350 crore, but the administration collected only ₹155 crore from property and water taxes. Now, only 10 days remain for the closure of the financial year, and it will be interesting to see how much recovery the zone offices can make in the remaining period.
Administrator G. Srikanth implemented several initiatives to increase the revenue of the corporation. He organised tax recovery and awareness camps for the speedy recovery of taxes from the property owners. Even the salaries of the CSMC employees were not paid until they showed the tax payment receipts. Help was sought from experienced officers of the GST department for the recovery of taxes. However, only ₹154.93 crore was collected, including ₹132.46 crore as property tax and ₹22.47 crore as water tax.
In the month of February, the pace of tax recovery was very slow, but it was expected that the recovery would gain momentum in March. However, the corporation could only achieve half of the recovery target and is expecting to recover more in the next 10 days.