LAHORE, May 28: The Abayana collection in the Punjab has dropped by 20 per cent or Rs500 million under district governments.

According to the calculations based on initial collection reports from the Board of Revenue, no more than Rs1 billion are likely to be collected in the current year against a target of Rs2.5 billion.

The total collection was falling anywhere between 70 to 80 per cent till the year 2000. The BoR was able to recover 50 to 60 per cent of the arrears during the subsequent year.

However, during the last two years, the total collection has gone down to 40 to 60 per cent, and is sliding further. It went down to 60 per cent last year and is expected to slide by another 20 per cent this year.

Javed Majeed, the provincial irrigation secretary, while talking to Dawn, attributed the situation to a lack of interest in tax collection on the part of new district governments. “They have lost interest in collection because they do not get this money,” he said. The money is collected by district governments and transferred to the irrigation department.

“In fact all feudals have been elected to the district assemblies, and they would be the last ones to pay their dues,” says another official of the department. Besides, he added, these elected people did not want to offend their voters by demanding state dues.

“Almost all the elected politicians have been approaching the department with requests for posting and transfers of different employees,” says a deputy secretary. For the last two years, the secretary’s office has been inundated with requests for transfers and postings, and the administrative wing is under tremendous pressure in this regard. All this is being done to avoid proper assessment and collection of funds for the department, he claimed.

The department has recommended a flat rate for Abayana in the province, and the issue has been taken up at many levels, said the irrigation secretary. If implemented, the rate would take the assessment out of the discretion of Patwaris, he said. It would also take care of the common complaint that Patwaris try to overcharge small farmers in a bid to make up for the losses caused by non-payment on the part of big feudals.

The flat rate would also take the system out of a crop-based regime and control the related complaints. Currently, many farmers lodge complaints about wrong assessment of the crop size.