Thane: The
revenue earnings of the Thane Municipal Corporation (
TMC) for financial year 2017-18 has touched Rs 2,229.61 crore, which is around 95 per cent of its set
target of Rs 2,350 crore.
Civic commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal has managed to rake in good revenue for the TMC last fiscal despite the conventional high income earning departments like town planning and public works registering a slump reportedly as a fallout of the RERA and GST.
However, an intensified recovery schedule from the property tax and LBT has helped erase any possible negative markings in the budget books, which instead raked in a Rs 180 crore surplus revenue for the treasury.
The annual income chart of the civic body accessed by TOI shows that the highest gainers last fiscal were the property and the local body taxes, which collectively contributed over Rs 1,300 crore or nearly 60 per cent of the total earnings for the civic kitty.
Around 1.25 lakh property tax owners from Thane and suburbs managed to contribute Rs 446 crore to the civic kitty last fiscal. Officials said the collections from this department are good as the recovery is near the target of Rs 480 crore, which was mainly due to intensified tax recovery initiatives undertaken by the officials. The department claims the revenue would have increased further but for a few defaulters, who were left to be tapped. The local body tax department / GST earned around Rs 82 crore last fiscal. Though, the LBT was abolished for a majority from August 2015 leaving only those with an annual turnover of Rs 50 crore and above under its ambit, the state government has been compensating the civic bodies with grants which helped the TMC gain another Rs 802 crore the previous year.
The income from the town planning department that is mostly sourced from development charges and permissions to be taken for starting a new realty project was affected last year and registered a slump of Rs 72 crore. The department earned a bulk of Rs 595 crore as against the desired target of Rs 632 crore. The income from sale of additional premium FSI also saw a drop with barely Rs 97 crore earned as against the Rs 100 crore revised target.
Another good revenue generator, the public works department, also failed to add more revenue to the civic coffers this time. As against the Rs 107 crores earnings seen in 2016-17, the public works department managed to garner only Rs 82 crores last fiscal. Interestingly, the the department is known to have surpassed its target set for the previous fiscal years due to several last minute road digging works undertaken.
