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A Village Burnt Overnight: Tears, Loss and Survival in Dhamangaon Blaze

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  Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
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STBs show the real picture: MSOs evaded Rs 18 cr duty each year

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STB


By Dheeraj Fartode

EACH Set Top Box installed in city’s household has started unearthing the fraud played on the State Government by Multi Service Operators (MSO). In A bid to evade entertainment duty the MSOs misguided the district administration on the number of cable connections which cost the state exchequer a whopping loss of over Rs 18 crore as Entertainment Duty (ED) per year.
After the STBs were made compulsory from April 1 the real picture has started coming to fore. The MSOs had put their cable connection strength to 88,637 in Nagpur city that has 5.32 households. However, data collected from Nagpur Divisional Commissionerate states that 4.34 lakh STBs have been installed in the Second Capital till date. The number has exposed the false claims of the MSOs and the massive evasion of Entertainment Duty.
The government applies Rs 45 as Entertainment Duty for each cable connection. Before the STBs were made compulsory the MSOs in the city had shown their connections as 88,637 thus paying only Rs 4.78 crore as ED every year.
Sources said same practice was on in the entire State thus causing a huge loss of hundreds of crore every year to the government coffers.
The State Government is now mulling issuing notices for recovery of ED to all cable operators in Maharashtra.
“We have noticed that MSOs evaded huge amount of ED every year. The administration will serve notice to all MSOs for back recovery of ED with interest,” Deputy Commissioner S G Gautam said.
Divisional Inspector (ED) Udaykumar Bhaisare said the administration had done a survey of cable connections in the city and found a big mismatch in the numbers claimed by the cable operators.
“However, the cable operators denied our claim and only 14,000 cable connections were increased in February 2013. The digitalisation process was aimed at plugging such leaks in the system. With STBs in place, the tax collection is also expected to rise,” Bhaisare said.
STBs were installed in Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik and Thane cities under the process of digitalisation from April 1.

STBs installed in city

UCN 2.60 lakh
IN-BCN 1.31 lakh
GTPL 0.43 lakh
Total 4.34 lakh

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