After a Kochi Corporation Council meeting held on Friday to assess the financial situation of the civic body and report to the Sixth State Finance Commission on the necessary changes to be made to increase the civic body’s revenue and streamline expenditure, the corporation is likely to suggest that it should be allowed to collect advertisement and entertainment tax again.
“When the GST system was implemented, the advertisement and entertainment tax were done away with. The power of the local bodies to collect these taxes has not been reinstated in Kerala. These taxes had earlier contributed in a big way to the corporation’s income,” Mayor Soumini Jain told The Hindu. Besides, officials should be allowed to continue in office for a minimum of three years without frequent transfers, and companies functioning here should be required to spend at least a part of their CSR funds here, she said.
The corporation was also likely to ask for timely appointments of bill collectors to be made, besides the appointment of a health officer and an estate manager to handle the civic body’s property, Deputy Mayor K. R. Premakumar said. An increase in State government grants in keeping with the amount of tax collected by the corporation was necessary, he said. The corporation should also be able to levy tax from professionals in the service sector, like lawyers and doctors, he said. About 50% of the the three-fold hike in fees for regularisation of unauthorised constructions should be made available to the corporation, he said. While these points have all been laid out in the corporation’s budget, it would be reiterated in its report to the finance commission.
Opposition leaders said that the existing funds from the State government were not being utilised. “Out of ₹730.98 crore received from the State from 2015-16 till 2019-20, only ₹542 crore was spent,” said V.P. Chandran, LDF Parliamentary party secretary. Besides, the amount under the Plan Fund for projects meant for Scheduled Caste persons had also remained under-utilised, he said. “Of the ₹47 crore allotted for this purpose in the past five years, only ₹21 crore was spent”.
The Opposition also pointed to the need to maintain an asset register of the corporation, and implement an online system of tax collection. Both property tax and profession tax were not being assessed or collected adequately, they said.