KARACHI: Admitting that the agriculture tax collection was not very efficient in the province, Minister for Revenue Makhdoom Meh­boob Zaman told the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday that the provincial government could recover only 21 per cent of the target of agriculture tax during the last fiscal year.

He was replying to questions of the opposition members during the Question Hour in the assembly.

The minister said the system for agriculture tax collection was not very efficient, but, he added, the same collection system was being practised in other provinces also. “We do face difficulties in tax collection, but there is considerable improvement than in the past. We are taking all possible measures to get the desired result,” he added.

He informed the house that the provincial revenue department remained unable to achieve even half of the Rs1 billion target set by the government for 2017-18 as only a little over Rs211 million was recovered from 23 districts of the province, except districts in Karachi.

When asked by an opposition member, Mr Zaman said the recovery of 2016-17 was more than last fiscal year’s as more than Rs220m had been recovered then.

He explained that there were certain variations in the assessment of agriculture tax which fluctuated the tax rate such as quantity and quality of crops.

MPA Arif Mustafa Jatoi of the Grand Democratic Alliance asked whether everybody, who was required to pay agriculture tax, was paying it.

The minister said that according to the prevailing tax collection system, the department collected tax on identification of mukhtiarkars.

Expressing dissatisfaction on the current agriculture tax collection, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan parliamentary leader Kanwar Naveed Jameel said that it was not actually agriculture tax but a sort of land tax.

“Just a nominal tax is being collected owing to this poor system. When will the government make its system effective and efficient just like the Federal Board of Revenue?” he asked, adding that the tax collection figures were merely eyewash.

The provincial revenue minister conceded that the current collection system was less efficient and vowed to improve it further.

The MQM leader asked the minister to apprise the actual number of lands of which that amount was recovered.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Bilal Ahmed also questioned the performance of the department asking that how the target of Rs2bn would be achieved this year as the government had failed to attain last year’s target of Rs1bn.

Replying to another question, the minister said that over 1.2 million acres of land had been lost to sea intrusion in Sujawal, Thatta and Badin districts during the past 10 years.

The minister informed the lawmakers that a coastal highway was being developed to halt the intrusion, and hoped that it would be enough to get the desired result.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2018