Kochi Corporation in financial mess

Kochi: At a time when the city corporation is facing severe financial crun-ch, with arrears of ne-arly `82 crore due to the civic contractors, it failed to collect building tax from several firms operating in Cochin Port Trust area. The buildings in Willi-ngdon Island, under the Port Trust, owe more than Rs 9 crore, accrued over nearly 15 years.

The civic body with a weak exchequer is not concerned of the revenue loss and it is this poor financial management which resulted in a deep financial crisis, according to opposition members in the council.

For the past several years, the corporation was getting only a nominal 30 per cent service tax from the buildings in the Port Trust areas. The buildings had been exempted from remitting tax as per an agreement signed between the CPT and Corpor-ation in 1993.

But, the CPT has leased out many of the buildings in the area to private firms which are not remitting tax, causing huge revenue loss to the civic body.

While raising the issue during a council meeting on Monday, Opposition leader K.J. Antony urged Mayor Soumini Jain to take immediate measures to collect the default tax. He submitted a report to the Mayor with deta-ils of the agreement wi-th CPT, number of buil-dings and tax arrears.

Though the corporation earlier initiated a joint inspection of buildings with the support of the CPT, it failed to succeed.

Hence, there are ambiguities over the number of buildings currently owned and leased out by CPT as some of the buildings have been demolished or sub-leased.

CPM councillor V.P. Chandran also criticised the civic administration for turning a blind-eye to the large scale revenue erosion.

While replying to the debate, the Mayor said that a detailed report in this regard will be submitted before the next council session.