NASHIK: The district administration has discovered that the cable TV operators had concealed a whopping 67% of the connections in a bid to evade entertainment tax.
The revelation came after the set-top boxes (STB) were made compulsory for each cable TV connection from April 1. Even as the cable operators claimed that the total number of connections in the district was 53,000, as many as 1.62 lakh STBs had been installed by March 31 and around 20,000 more were still to be set up. The district administration had estimated that there were 1.41 lakh connections in the city.
"We had estimated 1.41 lakh cable TV connections in the district but the number of STBs installed so far is far more than that. The multi-system operators (MSO) have come up with the figures which show that more than 20,000 customers are yet to install the STBs," a senior official from the entertainment department of the Nashik collectorate said, on the condition of anonymity.
The figures reveal that the cable operators had concealed a large number of customers of cable TV connections from the government, thus depriving it of the entertainment tax, collected at the rate of Rs 45 per customer per month in the city limits.
According to estimates, the administration has lost revenue of Rs 31.19 lakh per month, as per the present data. " Yes, there has been a huge loss of entertainment tax to the state exchequer. The digitalisation process was aimed at plugging the leaks in the system. With STBs in place, the tax collection is expected to rise. As far as the loss of revenue to the tune of lakhs of rupees is concerned, we will wait for the state government to evolve a po licy. Until then, we cannot do anything," the official added.
The cable operators, however, refute allegations that they had concealed any kind of information from the district administration. "As far as my area is concerned, the number of STBs given to customers is the same as the total number of cable connections. If there is any rise in the STBs in the area, it is only because of some of the customers have switched to cable connections instead of the direct to home (DTH) connection they so far had," one of the cable operators in the city said.
The manager of an MSO also said that he had no role in reporting any kind of hidden figures. "It is the job of at least seven cable operators in a particular area. Now who has divulged what figures to the government and whether he has evaded entertainment tax, we can't say. All that we can say is the STBs have been supplied as per the requirement of the areas only," the manager said.BOX
Company Customers STB installed Percent Residual percent
Hatchway 20000 19,040 95.15 970 4.85
Eids Media Com 14000 8300 59.29 5700 40.71
DEN 96000 86000 89.58 6000 10.42
Premium 56000 49000 87.50 7000 12.50
Total 186000 162330 87.2 23670 12.72
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