Mumbai: In a move aimed at increasing its tax collection, the gram panchayat of a village in Sangli district of Maharashtra has announced a lucky draw scheme under which three diligent taxpayers can win gold items like rings and coin.
As per the scheme announced by the gram panchayat of Wangi village in Kadegaon tehsil, the villagers, who clear their tax dues by March 15 next year, will be short-listed for the lucky draw.
It has offered gold rings weighing 5 grams and 3 grams respectively to the first and the second winners respectively of the scheme, which aims to encourage payments of water and property tax.
The third winner will get 2 gram gold coin under the scheme meant for the current fiscal. The three winners are to be picked from among the list of sincere tax payers through a lucky draw.
"The winners will be picked through a lucky draw, which will be held at a special gram sabha (assembly of the local governing body) to be held in-camera," the gram panchayat's notice reads.
When asked about the move, Wangi sarpanch (village head), Dr Vijay Honmane, said the scheme, which was declared around a fortnight ago, has so far received a "good" response from the villagers.
He said the gram panchayat is expected to register collection of around Rs 65 lakh tax annually from its 2,600 payers.
"However, the gram panchayat earned only Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh in the form of tax revenue due to the non-payment of dues, which ultimately hit the development works over the past some years," Honmane said.
"We tried various ways to widen our tax collection net, but did not get the desired result. Hence, we have come up with this scheme. So far, we have received good response.
We hope we will be able to collect around 80 per cent of the expected tax dues," Honmane told PTI over phone.
According to the 2011 census, the population of Wangi village was 9,960 and Honmane said the number has gone up to around 12,000 now.
Comments
0 comment