Balurghat: 25% of pending taxes recovered by new civic body board

BALURGHAT: Only 25 per cent of the pending taxes recovered so far after the new Trinamool Congress-led Balurghat civic board took charge, vice-chairman of the concerned board Pradipta Chakraborty told Millennium Post on Wednesday. Chakraborty said the present board has already geared up the drive to collect the pending dues from the households.

"We have set a target to collect the pending dues before the upcoming puja days. It is true that the dues are increasing day by day, reaching over a crore now. We have already recovered 25 per cent of the pending dues from them while the drives will be geared up to recover the remaining 75 percent of the pending amount," Chakraborty said.

According to Chakraborty, the concerned board has been facing trouble while conducting the drives. "Many households have not yet paid their dues for over 15 to 20 years, leading to real trouble for us. While conducting the drives, we are facing problems from the residents too. A few residents are reluctant to pay the dues even after receiving the official letter from us. We are requesting the residents to clear their long pending dues immediately otherwise the development tasks would have been hampered," she said.

Chakraborty said the official letter mentioned to clear the dues within 15 days after receiving the same from the board. Notably a group of civic officials-led by Chakraborty started the drive in order to recover the pending dues from the households covering all 25 wards. There are around 25,000 households under the civic body. According to a civic source, the pending property tax from the households is now reaching to Rs one crore while the dues have reached to Rs 4.70 crore from the government offices and other institutions situated under the civic body area. A few days ago, official letters were sent to those offices and institutions directing them to pay the dues as early as possible, it is learnt.