Thursday 19 December 2013

Nagpur State losing Rs 1,000cr ED every year

Nagpur state government struggles to pay its bills, it is losing thousands of crores of revenue every year due to apathy and corrupt practices of government officials. The public accounts committee (PAC) of state legislature has estimated that the government was losing Rs 1,000 crore entertainment duty (ED) per year as the revenue department did not have a proper mechanism for its collection.
The committee headed by BJP MLA Girish Bapat stated that at present the ED collected from cable operators was only Rs 94 crore annually. According to the committee report this much should be collected from Mumbai alone while the state’s collection should be Rs 500 crore. After the government forced cable operators to install set top boxes (STBs) in big cities, the number of cable connections increased from around 10 lakh to 25 lakh. This means that around 15 lakh cable viewers had been directly or indirectly evading ED, which is Rs 45 per month.

Until STBs were installed, as many 300 cable connections were provided in big hotels but only one was shown on record. This was done in smaller proportions in many commercial establishments and offices.
The PAC pointed out that the government was still using the outdated ED Act of 1923. A large number of changes had taken place with advent of television, internet, etc. and the Act was not equipped to deal with them. For example, under the digitized cable regime the role of the multi-system cable operators (MSOs) had become the most important. However, the ED Act had no provisions to deal with them.
Many cable operators were earning a lot of money by carrying advertisements. However, they did not pay a single penny to the government as tax on this. Many cable operators showed pornographic films especially at night. But the government does nothing to control the practice.
Private television channel companies need permission of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for starting a new one. However, the cable companies start new channels without taking any permission from revenue and home departments, which leads to loss of revenue.

Source:
http://cablequest.org/news/national-news/item/3844-nagpur-state-losing-rs-1,000cr-ed-every-year.html

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