Pune Mirror: Pune: Friday, June 01, 2012.
The Centre’s Right to Information (RTI) Act, has empowered citizens, especially in cases of corruption involving civic officials. But after its effective and sometimes excessive use by citizens aiming to bring about accountability in government, civic officials are now making use of the Act to boost the government’s revenue.
Asst Municipal Commissioner of Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation’s (PCMC) octroi department, Ashok Munde, took this unique approach when he wanted to increase octroi revenue especially on gold and liquor.
Once one of the richest municipal corporations in the country, the PCMC lost this status after small-scale industry units shifted out from under its jurisdiction. Since the civic body’s main source of income was octroi, they had been trying hard to boost octroi collection. When, Munde took charge of the octroi department in March 2009, the revenue was Rs 717 cr.
Knowing there was a large amount of octroi theft, Munde used techniques like checkposts to crack down on the octroi department employees-octroi evaders’ nexus. It helped increase revenue collections, but not on expected lines. Finally, Munde decided get to the root of the problem. He concluded that octroi evasion could effectively be known by the quantum of business carried out in the city, especially when it came to commodities like liquor and gold.
In March 2009, the department submitted an application to the State sales tax department asking for information of the sale of these items from 2007-09. Owners have to pay sales tax to the government and cannot bypass paying sales tax as easily as paying octroi.
Initially, Munde filed an application for the information twice, but was denied any. He then moved an RTI application for the information as the assistant commissioner of the PCMC’s octroi department, but was told by the information officer of the State sales department that they were not bound to share the information with him.
Munde then appealed to his superior Ashok Nimbalkar. When Munde explained the purpose of seeking the information, the sales tax department provided the information consisting of 1.73 lakh pages. Munde paid Rs 2.26 lakh from the PCMC coffers to avail the same.
When he checked the information against the octroi collections, Munde found that liquor dealers had to pay an amount of Rs 26 crore to the PCMC with a fine for the period between 2007 and 2009. In case of gold shipments, the amount reached Rs 13 crore. On this basis, Munde’s department sent notices to all the octroi evaders. Acting against liquor dealers, Munde sealed properties of the city’s 27 top dealers. He did the same for jewellery stores.
Munde said, “There are 27 octroi posts in the city. When I joined the PCMC, revenue was below Rs 1,000 crore, now, it is above Rs 1,200 crore per annum. When I decided to depute flying squad and raid checkposts, I thought it was enough to increase revenue, but learnt otherwise. After I secured the information, I initiated action on octroi evaders. Some of them went to the High Court, but the court ruled against them.
Due to the RTI application, I came to know of arrears of Rs 26 crore for the liquor business and Rs 13 crore for gold jewellery businesses. For the last two years, we have been getting a revenue of Rs 2.5 crore from jewellery dealers. Earlier, the collection was Rs 15 lakh. In case of liquor businesses, the amount went from Rs 3 crore to Rs 13 crore,” he added.
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