A ‘taxing’ job awaits Chennai’s postmasters

CHENNAI:  Your friendly neighbourhood khaki-clad postman could soon double up as tax collectors if the city corporation’s pilot initiative in Tondiarpet goes as per plan. The initiative will be first tried out in ward 34. “If it works, we will scale it up to other wards,” a senior corporation official told TNIE.

Revenue officials are positive that the postmen will locate addresses better than tax collectors. “In many cases, the door numbers will be wrong or absent and tax collectors return without finding the house, but a postman would know every house at a particular location,” said a revenue official. 

The initiative is being launched after the tax collectors claimed they are overburdened with large number of bills. In 2006, there were 280 tax collectors for around six lakh assessees in the city. Now, when the assessees have increased to 14 lakh, there are only 170 tax collectors for the 200 wards. Some of the 280 tax collectors retired or were transferred and the posts were not filled.

“Each tax collector has 2,500-3,000 bills to handle. This number varies, and we have seen a maximum of 10,000 bills per collector,” said a tax collector on condition of anonymity. We don’t think our work is duly recognised. When there are targets set for tax collection, we are not always able to meet them. There are limitations as to what we can do. Even for large-scale defaulters, there is no protocol in place as to what actions can be initiated by tax collectors,” he added.

When contacted, a senior corporation official said the strength of tax collectors were on the lower side but still the civic body had a much higher strength than other corporations. “Number of bills per tax collector, for example, is much higher in other places. In addition, as collection is also available through online mode, the requirement for physical collection has decreased. We also divert staff temporarily from one zone to the other based on pending bills,” the official said. 

However, tax collectors said online collection will improve only if tax collectors visit the assessees and persuade them to pay the bills. “Even for residents to pay bills online, we have to knock on their doors. Otherwise they don’t pay,” said a tax collector from the Corporation’s Central region.