KARACHI, Nov 15: The Sindh government has directed the Sindh Board of Revenue and the excise department to boost revenue collection to meet the cost of development projects, which might be affected due to cuts in the provincial Public Sector Development Programme for the current fiscal year.

The departments have been asked to lay focus on collection of current taxes and recovery of arrears during the three remaining quarters of the current fiscal.

The main revenue generation for the Sindh government is from agricultural income tax, land utilisation, stamp duty, registration of property units, infrastructure cess and motor vehicle registration tax.

The excise department made a record jump of 68 per cent to Rs4.96 billion during the first four months of the current fiscal (July-Oct) against Rs2.96 billion in the same months of last year.

Director-General Asif Marghoub Siddiqui told Dawn that the main jump in revenue collection is due to infrastructure cess on imports, which fetched Rs3.26 billion during the period under review against Rs1.64 billion last year.

The collection, however, suffered in motor vehicle registration, which dropped by 40 per cent during July-Oct to Rs11,535 million against 105,079 million last year.

The department has taken steps to improve collection from property tax which is a devolved tax meant for the city government.

The city district government has approved Rs20 million for a project aimed at computerising tax collection procedures and to keep an up-to-date data of the taxable property units.

The department collected Rs729 million from property tax during the four months and it hopes to raise the revenue to Rs2 billion after the automation of the tax system.

The shortfall in revenue from property tax is due to absence of law for a fresh survey of property units and revision of valuation table. The previous survey was carried out in 2001-02.

The department has recommended to the finance department to allocate funds for rewarding the taxation staff for their outstanding performance in tax recovery.

The government provided Rs2 million as reward money in 2006-07, but the practice was later abandoned.