In a major achievement for urban development department, the 17 municipal corporations of the state registered a 33% growth in revenue collection by cornering Rs 3,102 crore in the 2023-24 financial year, as compared to Rs 2,340 crore in 2022-23.Lucknow and Kanpur registered a sharp rise in tax collection by increasing the use of technology-based solutions for tax recovery from urban population. The highest revenue was collected by Lucknow Municipal Corporation (inclusive of Jal Kal dept), which soared from last year’s Rs 687 crore to Rs 904 crore, while that of Kanpur went up from Rs 398 crore to Rs 534 crore. Municipal bodies governing Moradabad, Firozabad and Mathura recorded an increase of around 70% in annual revenue as compared to last financial year.

Principal secretary, urban development department, Amrit Abhijat said, “Cumulative framework, GIS-based database and new avenues were three major focus areas assigned to municipal commissioners to increase revenue collection this time.”For the first time, incentive-based schemes were rolled out in the state which pushed officials heading urban local bodies to do better. In terms of overall revenue collection, Lucknow and Kanpur were followed by Ghaziabad (Rs 350 cr), Prayagraj (Rs 253 cr), Agra (Rs 215 cr), Varanasi (Rs 166 cr), Meerut (Rs 121 cr), Moradabad (Rs 94 cr), Aligarh and Bareilly (both Rs 84 cr), Gorakhpur (Rs 69 cr), Saharanpur (Rs 51 cr), Jhansi (Rs 47 cr), Mathura (Rs 42 cr), Ayodhya (Rs 36 cr), Firozabad (Rs 31 cr) and Shahjahanpur (Rs 21 cr). While house and water tax continued to be the major source of revenue, tax inspectors deputed in Ghaziabad carried out thorough survey of outdoor advertising billboards and hoardings to collect Rs 18 crore from companies operating them.In a weak area for Lucknow city, the local body could generate only Rs 12 lakh from entrepreneurs in food business. Ghaziabad, Kanpur and Prayagraj collected Rs 7.2 crore, Rs 6.28 crore and Rs 3.62 crore, respectively, as licence fee and charges from food vendors. Kanpur was at the forefront when it came to penalising establishments for use of plastic items by generating Rs 3.15 crore. Lucknow’s civic body could impose penalty of only Rs 39 lakh on such offenders. Lucknow earned the highest Rs 47 lakh out of state’s total of Rs 86 lakh revenue collected in the state through registration of dogs.Officials said that it would take a fortnight to complete reconciliation of final figures and tabulation of data of remaining 745 urban local bodies.