Telangana ULB outsourced staff stripped off revenue collection duty

HYDERABAD: With irregularities and misappropriation of property tax and other funds coming to light at the Citizen Service Centres (CSC) and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration (CDMA) has stripped outsourced personnel off the responsibility of receipts and remittance of revenue collections and assigned the duties to ward officers, regular bill collectors or other regular employees working in the ULBs.

If any deviation is noticed, necessary action will be initiated against the officials concerned as per rules.

During the review of disciplinary cases by the CDMA recently, the irregularities and misappropriation of property tax collection and non-remittance of collected revenue to the municipal account by the outsourced persons were noticed in the ULBS. This happened due to the laxity of officials in properly supervising the outsourced staff, CDMA officials said.

The irregularities by the outsourcing employees came to light when the Director, State Audit, during the course of audit of ULBs, noticed certain revenue leakages on the receipt side by using the software application and thereby causing loss to municipal finances.

The audit observed certain gaps in the applications, which are the root cause of non-remittance of collected amounts to municipal accounts.

As and when such revenue leakages were brought to light during the course of audit, the amounts were being remitted by the outsourcing/contract employees immediately in some of the municipalities.

To prevent misappropriation of funds in the ULBs, collection of all types of taxes and non taxes taking place in CSC logins and counters have been disabled.