Bhubaneswar: Tax collectors of Odisha’s urban local bodies (ULBs) will play a different IPL games. They will play Muncipal Premier League (MPL) to enhance the tax collections in cities and towns.

As part of an MoU signed between the State housing and urban development department and the Janaagraha Team, the latter is going to organise MPLs in different urban centres to motivate the tax collectors to improve the revenue collection with a view to make the ULBs self-sustainable.

The director Municipal Administration, Sangramjit Nayak said, “TheJanaagraha team has come up with the idea of conducting Municipal Premier League (MPL) for the Property (Holding) Tax collecting officials of the AMRUT cities of the State which will increase the internal revenue collection. The main objective of conducting MPL is to motivate Tax officials, recognize their contributions through exciting contest format modeled on the IPL and in turn to improve the internal revenue generation of the ULBs across the State”.
A preparatory meeting was held under the chairmanship of H & UD principal secretary G Mathivathan for organizing the MPL in AMRUT cities of the State . Besides the director mu icipal administration, commissioners of municipal corporations , concerned executive officers and other senior officers of the department were present in the meeting.

An organising committee has been formed consisting of the director municipal administration as the chairman and all the municipal commissioners of 5 municipal corporations -BMC , CMC , BeMC , RMC & SMC and the executive officers of 4 Municipalities- Puri , Baripada , Balasore and Bhadrak-to facilitate, monitor and guide the entire event.

A workshop in this regard will be conducted on 20th January 2020 for the tax collecting officials to kick-start the league and to provide capacity building training. The tax collection process will start from 21st January 2020 at the 9 AMRUT cities for the purpose of MPL and the actual league will take place from 1st February to 31st March 2020.

Weekly status meetings will be held with the Organising Committee to understand the progress of MPL. A maximum of 67 Awards are to be distributed among the top performing officials after conclusion of the league. The real time data will be shared by the respective ULBs/ Teams under the leadership of the organising committee members to create the dashboard for the league.