Revenue wing of Khammam Municipal Corporation not following due process
KHAMMAM: Officials of revenue wing in Khammam Municipal Corporation (KMC) are not following due process while making financial transactions, whether related to property tax, rents, building development charges or building regularisation.
An example is KMC losing ₹ 7.5 lakh of revenue related to property mutation, which should have been deposited into the corporation’s account in 2019–20 and 2020–21. Though revenue officials received mutation charges by way of demand drafts (DDs), these were not deposited into KMC’s account.
There are 50–100 mutations carried out within the corporation limits every month. Property owners pay ₹ 3,000 to registration office through demand draft (DD) for each mutation. Registration office must send the DDs once a week to the revenue department. Revenue officials must enter details of the DDs – name of property owner, address and DD number – and hand them over to the cashier for depositing in the bank.
An employee on deputation from public health to revenue department collected 190 DDs in 2019–20 and 60 in 2020–21 and kept them in the almirah, instead of promptly getting them deposited into the bank. Finally, when they were deposited, the bank rejected the DDs, pointing out that they had become invalid. The DDs were then brought back and placed in one of the racks. The truth came out when people started inquiring about the fate of their applications.
None of responsible officials, such as revenue officer, manager or joint auditing officer (JAO) had checked whether the amounts had been credited into the treasury account number 8448-102-03-002 of the registration department.
Similar lapses are occurring in property tax (PT) collection too. Bill collectors are not paying PT cash to the revenue inspectors every day. The due-process – taking signatures on daily tax collection slips from hand machine and getting signatures of revenue inspector and revenue officer, is not being followed.
An officer said, “There is every chance of funds getting misappropriated when KMC engages outsourcing staff, particularly when collection is high”.
