KARACHI: Collection of property tax with utility bills likely
KARACHI, Dec 7: The city government has decided to recover property tax with utility bills in order to increase the revenue manifold and ensure an effective mechanism for the recovery of the tax.
Besides, it has been decided to undertake a survey of trade licences, billboards and advertisement boards t ascertain the exact revenue potential in this sector.
The decisions were taken at a briefing held here on Wednesday for City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal about the city government’s revenues. It was attended by DCO Fazlur Rehman, EDO Finance and Planning Roshan Ali Shaikh and officials of the finance department.
The city nazim was informed that property tax recovery was not taking place in a proper manner, as a result of which, the city government’s income was not increasing satisfactorily. It was stated that the recovery of property tax could increase manifold if it was linked with utility bills, as was done in the case of TV licence fee which was now being recovered with electricity bills.
The nazim directed the officials concerned to approach the management of KESC and Sui Southern Gas Company in this regard.
Regarding advertisement revenues, the meeting was informed that the target in this sector had been set at Rs1 billion, but the revenues could increase many times if there was a proper recovery system.
It was pointed out that a complete survey of billboards, advertisement boards and trade licences was not available.
The nazim gave approval to the appointment of a consultant for having a complete survey and ordered the officials concerned to start the survey work from Thursday (Dec 8). It was decided to place advertisements in newspapers in three days for appointment of the consultant.
It was also decided that after the trade licence survey, the actual quantum of revenue be determined and trade licence fee be auctioned openly.
The District Officer (Finance) Rehan Khan was assigned the task of completing the survey within a month and submitting his report to the city nazim.
Syed Mustafa Kamal said that without determining correct figures of revenue collection, a better planning for the city could not be done. Calling for an increase in the income of the city government, he warned officials against negligence and carelessness in this regard.
CONNECTING BRIDGE: The city government is mulling to connect I. I. Chundrigar Road with Mai Kolachi Bypass with a flyover and City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal has asked the officials concerned to write to the Karachi Port Trust authorities in this respect.
During a briefing, officials of the Works and Services Department told the city nazim that the KPT was reconstructing Maulvi Tameezuddin Khan Road and Mai Kolachi Bypass Road.
He was further told that a bridge was being built at the turning towards the PIDC House, but its design did not provide linkage of the Mai Kolachi Bypass to the proposed flyover of I. I. Chundrigar Road.
He was informed that after completion of the flyover, the bridge being built by the KPT would not be sufficient to ensure a smooth flow of traffic at this section, hence this technical flaw should be corrected now.
The nazim asked the officials to write a letter to the KPT to apprise it of the whole situation. He asked for summoning a high-level meeting in this regard so that a strategy could be chalked out. Representatives of the CDGK, KPT and Sindh government, besides consultants, should attend the meeting, he said.
Meanwhile, city nazim on Wednesday met people in his office at the Civic Centre and listened to their problems. He issued orders for addressing grievances of many of these people.
The nazim asked officials to give priority to solving citizens’ problems.—APP/PPI
