General Body wants PMC to step up vigil
Sakaal Times: Remaining largely unimpressed by the recent spate of raids and generation of new avenues for octroi collection, the General Body (GB) of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Wednesday appeared far from confident that the octroi department would meet the current year’s target.
Unless the department goes hammers and tongs against habitual offenders, there will be little progress in the revenue collections, Congress leader Aba Bagul said, asking the department to declare the list of such offenders.
After much debate, the names, said to be seven in all, were never released by the octroi department.
Leader of the house Anil Bhonsale, however, said the anxiety among members to get to the names was not justified as it would not fetch PMC a windfall from them, evoking a look of relief from Rajendra Muthe, the head of the octroi department.
A spirited Kishore Shinde of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), however, declared that if the corporation had any problems getting its hands on the offenders, the MNS machinery could step in and resolve the issue within a few minutes.
“Just tell us when you give up on the octroi evaders, we can do a good job of following them,” Shinde said, as the administration and the mayor sat in silence.
Meanwhile, corporators have also accused the octroi department of being lenient with truckers carrying exit passes, saying their wares were to be unloaded in cities beyond Pune (called escort vehicles) dumping their consignments in Pune city evading taxes.
Unless the PMC follows up on such trucks to see whether they really move out of the city without unloading, it would be difficult to bring octroi collections to any appreciable level, the corporators said.
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