Talcher: With the post of commercial tax officer lying vacant and not much office work being done in the last 18 months, the highest revenue earning commercial tax office here in Angul district has been forced to a state of dormancy.
Local people are yet to understand why the revenue earning office has been crippled.
Sources said that the office of commercial tax officer (CTO) was opened in 2008 after several agitations for the same and it used to run from a rented building near the Talcher by-pass.
Later, joint commissioner, commercial tax, in Angul had written a letter to the concerned officer May 12, 2018, informing him about the office to be shifted to Angul. But it got respite after the intervention of the then Talcher MLA. The joint commissioner had then said that the office’s relocation had been stopped.
But the joint commissioner had again asked the CTO June 22 to shift the office to Angul. Talcher CTO had started completing all the procedures accordingly.
It was when all the files and furniture were to be shifted to Angul that local residents and businessmen staged a protest June 24, 2018. Bowing to pressure, the files and all other documents and furniture were shifted to land acquisition office of MCL and NTPC on the premises of Sub Collector’s office. A peon is there guarding the files and furniture.
Meanwhile, the CTO’s office has been newly opened at a house of MCL in Deulabeda colony. But the office is running without any officer. Nor have the files and furniture been shifted to the new office from the Sub Collector’s office. The new office has only two Class IV employees, always found to be kicking their heels.
Local people have alleged that the office has been opened just for namesake.
The businessmen here said that they are the ones who are the worst sufferers.
“We have been at the end of our tether shuttling between Angul and Talcher for any sort of work. A conspiracy is in the making to make Talcher a pauper one. We demand the CTO be made functional at the earliest,” local residents and businessmen said.
Joint commissioner, Angul, could not be contacted for his reaction in this regard.
PNN
