Name and shame' strategy succeeds

Puducherry: Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi’s initiative to ‘name and shame’ defaulters who failed to pay arrears, seems to be successful in yielding results.

The new step taken by the Lt Governor, who made it clear on several occasions that she is on a mission in the Union Territory, is widely appreciated as a good initiative to bring transparency and efficiency in administration even though the ruling party engaged in war of words with the Lt Governor on several occasions seems to be not so happy with the move.

Several departments in Puducherry are facing severe fund crunches including the electricity department which has Rs 120 crore unpaid bills.

The ‘name and shame’ initiative was started with the electricity department, which published the names of those who had not paid their electricity dues. As result of this, the electricity department collected Rs 14 Lakh on the very first day, claimed Ms Bedi. The Lt Governor had paid a surprise visit to the electricity department and held meetings with the officials.

Later the Lt Governor in a message said that the move to recover the electricity bills has delivered instant results, with total amount recovered in last one week under the campaign adds up to over Rs 50 crore. Out of the recovered amount, Rs 4.78 crore is the arrear amount, she said.

The move to expand the tax collection method to other departments comes on the heels of a note sent by local administration department (LAD) secretary P. Jawahar to LAD director G. Malarkannan identifying the mounting arrears in collecting property tax, trade licence fees and municipality rent as one of the main reasons for the poor financial health of local bodies.

Jawahar in a message said that as a result of these pending arrears, the local bodies could not achieve their revenue collection targets leading to even non-payment of salaries and pensions to retired officials in local bodies.

The Lt Governor later held a joint meeting with officials of local administration department and also the president of Puducherry Traders Association Shankar.

It was decided at the meeting that the list of defaulters owing property tax to local bodies should be published in newspapers and also announce them on FM radio channels.

Following this it was decided to e-auction assets of tax defaulters once the statutory period for re-payment of dues was over. The properties of defaulters of power bill, property taxes, trade licences and excise could be attached and auctioned online after getting legal opinion, said Ms Bedi in a message.

“Defaulting properties should have a sign board on site indicating that it is a defaulter property open for auction with the name of the person. The names of defaulters would be published and their photos posted on websites,” said the Lt Governor.

She also paid a surprise visit to Puducherry municipal corporation revenue wing to see how the scheme of ‘naming and shaming’ of property tax defaulters was working. “Checking from the collection centre revealed a quantum jump in recoveries. From an average of four lakhs a day was becoming 14 lakh and counting,”said Ms Bedi in a message after the visit.

She said the programme of ‘naming and shaming’ was yielding required impact.

The new initiative of the Lt Governor had its impact on political arena where the opposition parties including NR Congress and AIADMK welcomed the initiative.

AIADMK legislator party leader A. Anbazhagan said his party had warned the government of pending arrears in electricity department, local administration and commercial taxes department for a long time where the government failed to take any initiative to collect the tax.

The AIADMK leader complimented Ms Bedi and said that many defaulters had started remitting dues after the department decided to name the people.

NR Congress legislator Ashok Anand also came forward and appreciated Ms Bedi in the house saying that her initiative has helped the government in collecting huge amount of arrear bills.

Ruling party rejects  claim made by Bedi

Minister of power R. Kamalakanan on the other hand rejected the claim made by Ms Bedi that an amount of Rs 51 crore was collected by the electricity department in three days after the new initiative.

“The Lt Governor is just enacting a drama by making such claims. The collection for May and June was Rs 109 crore and for June-July it is Rs 112 crore. The department had collected Rs 39 lakh after in three days after Ms Bedi visited the department on July 22,” said the minister.  

The minister came heavily on the Lt Governor for spending too much money on advertisements.

“The Lt Governor has spent Rs 4 lakh daily towards advertisements,” the minister alleged.

The Chief Minister, who is critical about Ms Bedi intervening in day to day affairs of the administration and holding direct meetings with the officials, is yet to make any comments on the Lt Governor's new initiative.

The political arena is curious on whether the Lt Governor's new move in collecting taxes by directly involving the administration is going set another stage for a power struggle in Puducherry especially after the Chief Minister made it clear that the Lt Governor have got no right to interfere in administration.