Amusement dept revenue increases

At a time when the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is reeling under financial constraints, the revenue of the civic amusement department has increased by 32.39 per cent. According to the officials of the department, the amusement department had collected Rs 85.55 lakhs during the first half of the 2011-12 fiscal. In comparison, it has managed to collect more than Rs 1.13 crore during the same period in the 2012-13 financial year. Farzana Alam, the deputy mayor and in charge of the civic amusement department, said that the department had taken up strict measures and put the documents in place to achieve the huge turnover. “To collect more revenue, we increased the Rs 1 token amusement fee charged by the Left Front board for cultural programmes to Rs 100. People who can spend lakhs on a cultural programme can also pay Rs 100 to the KMC,” the deputy mayor said. The civic department also pulled up arrears collection from cable television operators. And this also contributed in the revenue, she added. A senior official of the civic body also informed that earlier the work culture in the KMC was such that officials and civic staff were not bothered about revenue collection. “Though the demand notices were sent out regularly, neither the citizens bothered to clear their dues nor the civic officials bothered to collect it from them. However, there is a marked change in the work culture now,” he said.