The Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) has recovered 55 billion up to May 30, 2016, and it would achieve the target of Rs 61 billion collections by the end of current financial year.
This was disclosed in a meeting held under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah to review the kitty of government for finalising the next budget at the CM House on Tuesday. Those who attended the meeting included Senior Minister for Finance & Energy Syed Murad Ali Shah, Chief Secretary Siddique Memon, Principal Secretary Alamuddin Bullo, Senior Member BoR Rizwan Memon, ACS (Dev) Mohammad Waseem, Secretary Finance Sohail Rajput, Secretary Excise Haleem Shaikh, Zulfiqar Shah Member BOR and others.
The chief minister said this was a very good collection and “we would ensure to trickle its benefits down to the people of the province by creating job opportunities and carrying out development works.”
The SRB in-charge, Mr kazmi, said his organisation had collected Rs 6.1 billion in a single month of May which was itself a record. The overall collection from July 2015 to May 30, 2016 comes to Rs 55 billion and by the end of financial year it would achieve collection target of Rs 61 billion. The chief minister congratulated the SRB and finance minister for achieving the target said that it was a great contribution of the PPP government to strengthen financial position of the province by establishing a strong and effective organisation like the SRB. It may be noted that last year, 2015-16, the collection target was Rs 49 billion.
Senior Member Board of Revenue Rizwan Memon briefed the meeting and said it was given a target of Rs 16.6 billion against which they had recovered Rs 10 billion and by the end of the year their collection it would cross Rs12 billion. Thus there would be a shortfall of Rs 4.6 billion. Member BOR Zulfiqar Shah told the chief minister that he had cleared the back log of 36,000 documents at microfilming. Now the entire process has been digitalised and next year the revenue recoveries would be increased and the people would be happy to receive their record within three days.
It may be noted that the BoR has three wings – registration, revenue, stamp. All the three wings are being revamped which would not only increase revenue collections but develop great convenience for the people.
The excise and taxation department secretary was given a target of Rs 41.78 billion against which it had recovered Rs 42 billion. He added that the department would go much ahead of the target.
The chief minister said that the last property survey was conducted in 2001, therefore fresh survey must be conducted to bring in more housing units in the tax net. He directed the chief secretary to call a meeting to evolve mechanism for fresh survey of property units. Secretary Finance Sohail Rajut said that through a World Bank project property survey was being conducted in Sukkur through a private firm. He suggested that the department should be outsourced as it lacked physical resources to conduct the survey.
The chief minister while giving guidelines to his finance, development and planning teams said that in the next budget maximum employment opportunities should be created. “I want you to give special focus to women empowerment, youth, sports, welfare, special education and such others department,” he said and added that additional funds be allocated for local governments.
Senior Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah said that he had already requested all the departments to send their new SNE for allocation of the budget in the next financial year. He added that there would be plenty of new jobs in police, education, health, irrigation and in some other departments.
The chief minister directed Senior Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah to finalise budget proposals for the next year.
