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Top institutes in defaulters’ list of holding tax

BHUBANESWAR: With beautifully landscaped campuses, spacious buildings and collection of ‘hefty’ admission fees, big educational institutions of Bhubaneswar claim to be no inferior to their peers in other States of the country. But when it comes to paying taxes for using public resources, they develop cold feet.

A list of biggest defaulters who have not paid holding tax computed by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) is dominated by many big educational institutions.

"Educational institutions have been our biggest headache. Our tax collectors have done everything to convince them to pay the holding tax but all our efforts have gone in vain. They have not even responded to our demand notices," BMC Commissioner Aparajita Sarangi told The Hindu on Tuesday. Warning penal actions against the defaulters, the BMC on Tuesday released a list of top 22 defaulters of Bhubaneswar. Vigyan Bharati Hitech Hospital, which runs a medical college, is to pay Rs 16.96 lakhs, while Sikhya ‘O’ Anusandhan that operates a prominent engineering college has not paid Rs 16.95 lakhs towards holding tax to BMC. Similarly, Rs. 5.79 lakhs of holding tax is pending against Biju Patnaik College of Science Education and Rs. 1.19 lakhs against Ekamra College. BMC has estimated nearly Rs 1 lakh of holding tax pending against Model Public School at IRC Village. There are bigger defaulters of holding tax in the city, but the BMC has not put them in the list. One of them Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) has moved the court questioning the whole idea of imposition of holding tax. A sum of over Rs. 2 crores is pending against KIIT University, Chairman of the BMC’s Finance Committee Sameer Mohanty said.

Another major defaulter not figuring in the list is Utkal University, a premier institution in the State. An amount of Rs. 40 lakhs is pending against the university, but after failing to realise the money the BMC is now contemplating to take up the matter before the State Government’s Higher Education Department. "For past one year, we have been chasing authorities of Utkal University to collect the tax. But they are arguing that since they manage their campus on their own, we have no right to collect tax," Ms Sarangi said, while terming the university’s claim ‘absurd’.

A harassed BMC now plans to beat drums in front of every defaulting individuals as well as institutions to collect the holding tax. "We had achieved great success in tax collection by publicly offending the defaulters. We had managed to collect Rs. 8.78 crores last fiscal compared to Rs 7.50 crores in the previous year. We are confident to reach Rs 11 crores in the current fiscal," Ms. Sarangi said.

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