Kathmandu, February 1:

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has started monitoring “illegal business activities” taking place in city areas and has deployed a team with a view to boosting revenue collection.

Chief executive officer of the KMC, Dinesh Thapaliya, said the team would monitor different business activities including parking fee collection and authorising hoarding boards.

The KMC will also start a door-to-door revenue collection drive in all the 35 wards, set up separate revenue desks and deploy revenue officers in 12 most populated wards.

“No unauthorised consumers’ committees or local clubs can collect parking fees. Only the KMC has this right,” said Thapaliya, adding that the team would study and manage the parking areas in all the wards. The records of the contractors, parking areas and the various charges would be made up-to-date. Thapaliya requested the people not to pay parking fees to unauthorised clubs or committees. He added that in the past 20 days alone the KMC has brought some 36 hoarding boards under its revenue net and collected Rs 1.6 million collected from them.

“We will paste a notice on all unauthorised hoarding boards asking the owner to dismantle them within three days,” he said. Taxes on house rent and other smaller businesses in all the 35 wards would be collected by the KMC teams that will go to the people’s doorsteps.

The monitoring teams are fully authorised to take action against KMC employees or people conducting business illegally.

The nine-member team headed by revenue officer Rajya Prakash Pradhananga comprises representatives of all employees’ unions at the KMC and staff of the revenue department.

Meanwhile, the KMC has formed a task force to look into the problems facing Metro FM run by the civic body. The move follows protests launched by the Federation of Nepalese Journalists at the FM office.

“The KMC is considering giving the Metro FM to interested parties on lease and planning to shift the station in its own building,” Thapaliya said. He added that the metropolis has proposed making the FM a common media.