MSYD Taxman to come a-knocking at defaulters’ doors

Chairman Amar Singh Rai

EOI, darjeeling, 14 AUgust 2014: With revenue by way of taxes getting hard to come by, the Darjeeling municipality has come up with an innovative idea of exacting dues from defaulters.

The modus operandi is simple: “If they don’t come, we go to their doors instead”. This flagship initiative is aptly named Municipality Service at Your Doorstep (MSYD).

Darjeeling municipality chairman Amar Singh Rai, the brains behind the idea, said, “The municipality is an autonomous body and has to raise revenues on its own. It is a fact that in Darjeeling, people frequently default in paying their taxes. Property tax is a huge income generating avenue. I felt that if property owners do not come to us to pay their taxes, then why not we go to them instead?”

The MSYD programme has recruited several individuals for making door-to-door visits in wards to identify and collect details of propertied people who are defaulting in paying their taxes.

“We have selected unemployed but educated youths from various wards and trained them for two to three months. We made them aware and educated them about the types of taxes and how to extract details from property owners,” explained Rai.

The municipality chairman also said the campaign has already been started in two wards. “We have started the exercise in two wards and are getting good response so far. In fact, we have made arrangements for paying taxes on the spot, at the time when our young recruits visit their houses,” said Rai.

He added, “We have also taken into account people’s apprehension of unknown individuals appearing at their doorsteps and seeking details. To solve this problem, we have issued identity cards and a letter of authority issued by the civic body.”

Municipal records show there are more than 80,000 people within the municipality area who own property in the form of houses, flats or shops. However, only 9,996 have had their property registered with the civic body. Moreover, only 35 per cent of these people are actually paying their taxes on a regular basis.

“If all the registered owners pay their due taxes, we stand to collect Rs2.5 crore on a yearly basis. Sadly, this is not so at the present. We generate revenues to the tune of only Rs1.3 crore as property tax,” said Rai.

Working hours for the field visit recruits have been set from 8am to 10am and 4pm to 6pm in the evening. “We want to reach out to the maximum number of people and so have fixed the time for the visits accordingly as these are the timings when people are usually expected to be at home,” said the municipality chairman.

Another reason for the new initiative, according to Rai, is to ensure funds from the State Urban Development Agency (SUDA) are not affected.

“The municipality receives funds from the SUDA for utilisation for various projects within the areas in town. However, the SUDA has set conditions that in order to receive funds from it, the civic body must generate revenue on its own as well,” said Rai.

The SUDA is one of the funding agencies for various development programmes that are undertaken by the state government.