LUCKNOW: The city’s development will again take a back seat in the financial year 2018-19 as
Lucknow Municipal Corporation has not been able to meet the tax collection target this year.
The overhaul of broken infrastructure draws extensive support from LMC funds but because of the poor collection, repair of tattered roads, drains, dilapidated sewer lines and work on drying tube-wells will have to wait longer.
Against the target of Rs 260 crore collection this year, LMC has been able to collect just about Rs 160 crore as of March 31. This is around 40% short of the yearly target. On the last day, despite long queues of people at
LMC’s head-office, zonal offices and
e-Suvidha Kendras, LMC could collect only around Rs 12 crore. The yearly collection is even less than the last year’s tax recovery of around Rs 192 crore.
The cash-strapped corporation is in so much need of funds that it has decided to float municipal bonds for financing its upcoming housing project near SGPGI. In February’s executive meeting, LMC had even announced to cut down Rs 30 crore from the infrastructure repair funds. Against Rs 90 crore allocated for repair last year, it has been able to allocate only about Rs 60 crore for this year.
There are majority of instances where people have discrepancies with the LMC’s assessed tax amount. LMC’s biggest failure has been non-inclusion of many properties under tax fold. Of the estimated 5 lakh
taxable properties in LMC’s jurisdiction, around 1.5 lakh are still not paying tax. Additional municipal commissioner PK Srivastava said, “These are mostly apartments and private colonies in the outer areas. Besides them, a large chunk of government buildings are also not
paying taxes.”
