more-in Mayor Koneru Sreedhar has expressed concern over the laxity of the officials in collecting taxes in time from the taxpayers. Mr. Sreedhar convened a press conference to highlight the poor progress in tax collection by the revenue wing of the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation. He said the revenue wing had collected only ?52.04 crore, that is 42%, of property tax against the actual demand of ?124 crore so far this financial year. “Not even half the demand has been realised though half the payments were done for the full year; 59 bill collectors and 13 revenue inspectors could collect only ?10 to ?13 lakh per day which is under-performance.” He said only 6.6% of the vacant land tax demand of ?106 crore and only 36% of the water charges had been collected so far. The demand for water charges is ?37 crore from about 1.12 lakh assessments. He said though there were more than two lakh assessments, officials were able to levy water charges on only half of them. “All these irregularities are the result of negligent officials. Despite repeated instructions from the Mayor and the Commissioner that every assessment must be given a UGD connection, officials have failed to do so. So far there only 87,219 UGD connections were given against 2 lakh assessments,” he said. Mr. Sreedhar called upon the public to come forward and pay taxes to avoid penalty on delayed payments.

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