Set top boxes not considered for entertainment duty target?

M.J.Sadiq

M Jahabar Sadiq
Contributor
Joined
16 May 2011
Messages
21,066
Reaction score
30,271
NAGPUR: If a department surpasses the target set up the government, then you would expect the latter to hike the target especially when there is clear evidence that revenue will go up. However, this logic does not seem to appeal the state's revenue ministry. In case of Nagpur district, the entertainment duty (ED) target for 2013-14 is lower than the actual collection in 2012-13. A lower target will obviously reduce pressure on the field officers and possibly reduce the actual revenue collection.

Even though set top boxes (STBs) have sharply increased the entertainment duty (ED) collection in major cities of the state, the revenue ministry has not taken this into account while fixing the ED target for this fiscal.

The ED collection in Nagpur district in 2012-13 was Rs14.09 crore against a target of Rs13 crore. However, the target for this year is Rs14 crore. Now, consider the increase in revenue due to STBs. There were 88,000 cable connections on record in 2012-13 and they fetched Rs4.75 crore with monthly ED being Rs45. Now, the number of cable connections has crossed five lakh and consequently the ED collection will increase to around Rs27 crore automatically. In addition to this, the number of DTH connections too have increased to over 55,000 from around 20,000 last year.

The state's ED target of Rs595 crore equally defies logic. It is Rs4 crore less than the actual collection in last fiscal. The target was surpassed by Rs35 crore last year. STBs have become compulsory in eight cities of the state. The number of STBs in Mumbai and Mumbai Suburban districts have increased April 1 onwards. Revenue officials are at a loss to explain the low ED target in view of these facts.

The target for Pune district for 2013-14 is Rs112 crore against actual collection of Rs110.75 crore. The targets for Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Raigad, Thane and Solapur are marginally higher than the actual collection while that of Nasik is lower. The strangest case is of Aurangabad. Against an actual collection of Rs16.44 crore in 2012-13, the target for this year is Rs13 crore, just Rs20 lakh more than the target for 2012-13.

Set top boxes not considered for entertainment duty target? - The Times of India

.
 
Back
Top Bottom
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website. For the best site experience please disable your AdBlocker.

I've Disabled AdBlock