The cash-strapped ruling NDA in Bihar now plans to use theatre artistes to catch tax defaulters in the Patna Municipal Corporation.
If the Patna city commissioner Rana Awadhesh Singh is to be believed, soon theatre artistes will storm the city streets with stage plays to highlight the need to maintain better civic amenities which could only be possible when the residents do not evade tax, or else will have to face the consequences.
The decision was a departure from the earlier fancy idea of the MC to use eunuchs for the same. Sources disclosed that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar himself disapproved the idea as it might lead to public outrage.
Rana Awadesh Singh said the purpose of using theatre artistes was to urge the people to pay holding tax in time so that the MC could provide them better services.
Faced with a financial crisis, about 70,000 of the total 1 lakh holdings are still to be assessed by the MC. While it has to pay Rs 2.25 crore per year as salary to its 3,200 employees, the huge number of tax evaders could never be booked in the past.
