Following the steep decline in VAT collections in June, the AAP Government is in the process of hiring young talented officers in various departments to speed up tax collections and other development projects in the national Capital. The Government is also in the process of recruiting officers in the VAT department to detect tax defaulters. The Government has also decided to clamp down on traders evading VAT. The decision is in contrary to the AAP Government’s comm-itment not to raid any traders in the Capital.
A source said that the Government failed to detect VAT defaulters due to severe manpower shortage. The issue was also raised at a recent meeting of the heads of departments which was chaired by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. It was also decided that the Government would recruit special officials to catch big defaulters of VAT.
In the recent meeting, many officers raised the issue of huge manpower shortage in various departments — including VAT, Revenue, Food and Supply, Urban Development and DUSIB. The source said that instructions have been issued to the Services wing to provide suitable staff to these departments at the earliest.
Many bureaucrats were reportedly of the view that proposal for hiring talented officers after following the due process could also be considered. When an officer pointed out that the process of changing recruitment rules would be very time consuming, the Deputy Chief Minister advised that the proposal for hiring persons of good repute and expertise in departments having flexibility in recruitment rules be sent to Chief Secretary KK Sharma. The services department was also advised to post some officers to the Delhi State Subordinate Selection Board to enable them to speed up recruitment process.
While the AAP Government has set a target of Rs24,000 crore through VAT collections for 2015-16, its collections declined by about Rs100 crore in June in comparison to the corresponding period of previous year. The revenue generated by the Government through VAT was about Rs19,000 crore in 2014-15. The Government had stated that it would put an end to inspector raj to raise revenue through VAT.