aurangabad the cashstrapped aurangabad municipal corporation is witnessing a consistent fall in collection of local body tax lbt for the past three months making it difficult for the authorities to raise funds for civic bodys committed expenditures after the state government announced abolition of lbt from august 2015 the lbt collection of the civic body has dipped from average rs 165 crore per month to rs 125 crore in may the lbt which is the main source of revenue for the civic body contributes about 50 of amcs income in march 2015 the amc had collected rs 1653 crore as lbt followed by rs 144 crore in april however the collection dipped to rs 125 crore in may a senior official said that many traders were not paying the tax even after the government announced that the tax will be soon abolished the traders are on the backfoot these days which is gradually reducing the income of the municipal corporation we are now receiving rs 4 to 45 crore less every month on account of lbt the figure may slip further and the municipal body may struggle to meet its expenditure he said confirming the development deputy mayor promod rathod said there is no scope for taking up new projects because of paucity of funds on the one hand the income has dipped while on the other the civic body has to pay rs 53 crore per month to the water utility company on account of annual operational support grant aosg in view of the poor state of affairs we have been requesting the administration to stop the monthly payment of aosg for some time it will create room for many other important projects like roads rathod said the amc has been delaying payments of six to seven road contractors for the past few months forcing the contractors to suspend the works when contacted ajay shah president of the aurangabad jilha vyapari mahasangh denied that the traders are avoiding the tax the traders have made the local body tax successful and they will never shy away from paying the tax attributing the drop in lbt collection to sluggish movement in the market shah said the overall business is witnessing a drop for the past three to four months the real estate market is passing through a bad phase which is directly affecting sale of cement and steel jewellery trade is also going through a similar trend these factors are squeezing the lbt revenue of the civic body he said