PESHAWAR, Feb 14: The NWFP irrigation department, from now on, would collect water rate (abiana). Earlier the collection was the responsibility of the provincial Board of Revenue.

A notification in this regard was issued recently by the Board of Revenue (BoR), NWFP thereby the role to collect abiana was transferred to the irrigation and power department, NWFP.

With this the provincial BoR would only collect land tax and agriculture income tax, mutation fee, local rate, ushr and registration fee.

In accordance with the BoR notification, issued on Jan 14, last, under sub-section (1) and (2) of section 16 of the Land Revenue Act, 1967, the powers of collector, assistant collector of the first grade and assistant collector of the second grade were conferred on all the executive engineers, sub-divisional officers, deputy collectors and zilladars in the O&M wing of the irrigation and power department, NWFP, for the purpose of recovering water rate with immediate effect.

As per the new arrangement, executive engineers of the irrigation and power department would act as the collectors, sub- divisional officer and deputy collectors as assistant collectors of the first grade. Whereas, zilladars would be assistant collectors of second grade, contained the official notification.

“They shall exercise such powers within the local limits of their respective jurisdiction and for all purposes connected with the exercise thereof, be deemed to be the collector or assistant collector, as the case may be,” read the notification copies of which have been issued to all departments concerned and agencies of the provincial government.

Official sources told Dawn that the irrigation department would be responsible for recovering abiana (water rate) from the start of the second half of the current financial year, i.e. Jan 1, 2003.

Recovery of the receipts to be charged on the current Kharif crop, explained the sources, would be the responsibility of the irrigation department.

Under the previous arrangement, the irrigation department was used to determine the annual target (demand) after preparing assessments through its field staff. Whereas, recovery of the same was the job of the BoR.

Under the new scheme of things, said the sources, apart from making assessment to determine annual receipts target under the head of abiana, recovery of the same would also be the responsibility of the irrigation department.

“If they (irrigation department’s field staff) can make assessments to determine the annual target, they can also use the same field staff to collect the receipts from farmers,” said a senior officer of BoR.

The need to assign the task of collecting receipts to irrigation department, said the sources, was felt after the provincial government could not achieve the abiana receipts target during the last several years with big margin.

“Now after being assigned the role to collect the receipts, they (irrigation department authorities) may determine a realistic receipts target for the financial years to come,” said the sources hinting that previously the irrigation department was used to make unrealistically high assessment while fixing the annual target for the BoR.

However, recovery of arrears up to Dec 31, last, would be the responsibility of the BoR as, under the new scheme of things, said the sources, irrigation department would be responsible from Jan 1, 2003 and onward.

This arrangement would require the BoR, said the sources, to recover a total of Rs220m to Rs230m from the farmers community in default of the provincial levy.