KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Saturday said his government was working hard to improve the efficiency of revenue collecting institutions instead of imposing new taxes to strengthen financial health of the province.

“Instead of imposing new taxes my efforts are to improve the tax collection system,” said Mr Shah while presiding over a meeting to discuss matters pertaining to the coming budget and resource mobilisation proposal at CM House.

The Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) officials told the chief minister that they had the target of collecting Rs78 billion while expressing the hope they would be able to achieve it with a meagre surplus or shortfall.

SRB chairman Khalid Mahmood said the board had announced a tax incentive scheme that had received a good response. SRB adviser Mushtaq Kazmi said they had collected Rs8.5 billion record recoveries this month. Mr Shah appreciated the SRB’s performance in strengthening the financial position of the province and asked the officials to focus on compliance of SRB levies, which would help to improve the recoveries.

In his briefing, excise and taxation secretary Haleem Shaikh said they had the annual target of Rs52bn against which 90 per cent recoveries had been made by the end of April.

Excise Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla said on the orders of the high court the liquor shops had been closed for two months, which resulted in incurring a loss of Rs500 million to the provincial exchequer.

The Board of Revenue (BOR) had been tasked with the collection of over Rs12bn for the current financial year. Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon told the chief minister they had already collected over Rs11bn and the target would be achieved.

He said the major collections of BOR included registration fee on transfer of property, CVT and stamp duty.

Development programme

Finalising the next annual development programme 2017-18 of different ministries, Mr Shah said his government’s focus was to complete the ongoing schemes which were near completion or had great utility for public.

Karachi Package

Almost all the 18 schemes launched under Rs10bn Karachi Package would be completed by the end of June, save the underpass at Submarine Roundabout and a road from NED University to Safoora Goth, which would be completed by the end of August, the meeting was told.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2017