Bhubaneswar: With the 2020 financial year nearing an end, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) is set to lose around Rs. 4 crore through hoarding fees due to the dispute between the civic authorities and defaulters.
As per an audit report of the BMC’s revenue department, the civic authorities have failed to collect Rs. 4.76 crore from private hoarding/advertising agencies since 2017. As per the report, there are 77 defaulters with individual arrear amount up to Rs.40 lakhs.
It may be mentioned here that the civic authorities collect a lion’s share of their annual revenue from advertisement licence fees. They own around 600 properties out of 760 hoardings in the state capital.
The report had also mentioned that the BMC has been able to collect only `50 lakhs from the defaulters.
Responding to this, BMC Deputy Comissioner of Revenue, Srimanta Mishra said, “A dispute between the defaulters and the BMC regarding the amounts and fees is still ongoing in the court. We are waiting for a verdict and thus we haven’t been able to retrieve the amount. As soon as a decision is produced, we will act accordingly.”
As per sources, the state’s largest urban local body earns about Rs. 16-18 crore yearly through advertising fee, which constitutes about 15% of the BMC’s revenue. However, with the COVID-induced lockdown, the civic authority is further suffering a loss of Rs. 10 crore as agencies have expressed their inability to pay rents.
“Across Odisha only 100 outdoor advertising properties out of the total 16,500 were booked during the lockdown. Most corporate houses and small business organisations had slashed funds for the advertising campaigns. As a result, there was almost a 95 pc drop in hoarding displays across the state. We have thus asked BMC to consider rebate for this year’s advertisement taxes,” Sujit Sahoo, President of Outdoor Advertising Agencies Association of Odisha had earlier said talking to Orissa POST.
Although sources mentioned that the civic body had earlier auctioned `19 crore advertisement rights to two parties in February last year, it will still lag in earning profits from advertisements owing to the pandemic.
Aviral Mishra, OP
