BHUBANESWAR: The housing and urban development department has slammed the Public Health Engineering Organisation (Pheo) for poor collection of water taxes from consumers with the amount touching a meagre Rs 30 crore in three public health divisions of the state.Most of the defaulters are in the two public health divisions of Cuttack and one of Angul Collectively, the government agencies including the district collectorate, police stations, government colleges and universities along with general consumers and other administrative set-ups owe the Pheo Rs 30 crore.With the taxes and arrears continuing to show an increasing trend, what comes as a shocker to the state government is the inability of the Pheo in achieving a good tax collection from the consumers. According to records, the Pheo has been able to collect only Rs 5.95 crore which is about 19% of the fixed target.This came to light during a performance review meeting of the public health divisions by the housing and urban development department earlier this month. “The financial year is coming to an end and the collection is not up to the mark. We are asking them to achieve a good collection at least now,” said an urban development department official.Officials said a direction was issued to the non-achieving divisions of the Pheo following the meeting. “It is to intimate with great displeasure that you have been instructed from time to time to take effective steps for increasing the collection of water tax, but it is seen that the total collection of the three division is not up to the mark,” reads the direction.In the direction, the officials have been instructed to engage special squads, conduct mike announcements and consumer melas in different places so that the revenue collection will increase at least by the end of the financial year. The activities be start immediately, stated the letter.“I have instructed the assistant executive engineers, assistant engineers, junior engineers of the three public health division to take all efforts to achieve cent percent collection of the pending water taxes. Another performance review will be taken up soon to see the collection status,” superintending engineer of Cuttack circlel Hadibandhu Behera said.

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