Civic body failed to meet targets in major heads

Ludhiana: Even as the Ludhiana municipal corporation authorities are busy highlighting high recovery of property tax in the last fiscal year as their major achievement, perusal of the budget documents reveals that civic body has failed to achieve collection targets under some major heads.
Moreover, according to the sources, compared to the projected revenue collection of Rs 968 crore for the last financial year, Ludhiana MC managed to collect Rs 751 crore, which is around 77 % of the total projected target. A whopping amount of Rs 217 crore approximately remained unrealized.
Of the total Rs 217 crore deficit, non-payment of MC’s share of Goods and Services Tax (GST) alone resulted in a deficit of Rs 163 crore.
“Ludhiana MC had to receive its share of Rs 610 crore as GST/VAT collection. However, the MC has so far received only Rs 447 crore and remaining amount will be lapsed”, said sources.
The MC had performed quite well under the property tax head, wherein it recovered Rs 122 crore during the last fiscal compared to fixed target of Rs 100 crore. Similarly, under the Water Supply, Sewerage and Disposal Charges head, the MC managed to recover Rs 65.08 crore against the target of Rs 60 crore. Moreover, the MC also collected Rs 19 crore from Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA), which helped the officials in meeting their targets.
However, collection under the advertisement tax head remained low. Officials could not recover Rs 12 crore, which was the target set under this head. Pertinently, not long ago, the MC had made tall claims of projected revenue collection of Rs 25 crore by leasing out advertisement sites owned by Lud