ISLAMABAD, July 16: A shortfall of Rs150 million was registered with the revenue directorate of Capital Development Authority (CDA), due to poor recovery during the fiscal year 2001-2002, sources told Dawn on Monday.

The CDA failed to meet its last year’s property tax target of Rs550 million. The target had to be met by June 30, 2002.

Due to the shortfall in property tax collection the CDA will have problems executing the development projects.

The deficit, was due to the increase in last year’s annual target of property tax from Rs350 million to Rs550 million.

The CDA had increased the property tax by 200 per cent last year, as such it could not offer any excuse for the deficit, the source said.

Although the revenue directorate should collect more tax from commercial property rather then the residential sector, the total property tax collection from residential area remained higher.

An official confirmed that the revenue directorate had recovered Rs400 million in property tax and Rs155 million in water charges, which was Rs5 million more than the set target.

The official said the CDA had collected Rs250 million from residential sector and Rs150 million from the commercial plots.

Similarly, in water charges the authority recovered Rs105 million from the residential sector and Rs50 million from the commercial area.

A data of the revenue directorate revealed that the directorate had collected Rs315 million in the fiscal year 2000-2001 against the target of Rs300 million.

In the year 2000-2001, the CDA recovered Rs100 million property tax in the first quarter, Rs44.589 million in the second quarter and Rs68.592 million in the third.

In the current fiscal year Rs232 million were collected in the first quarter, Rs55 million in second, Rs56.000 million in the third and Rs57 million in the last quarter.

An official of revenue directorate agreed that the target of Rs550 million was quite difficult to achieve and according to them they had tried their best.