Monthly cable TV bill to go up as Bihar goverment hikes tax

PATNA: Cable TV viewers, beware. Your monthly bill is likely to go up with the Bihar cabinet on Wednesday approving a commercial taxes department's proposal to hike entertainment tax on cable TV.
Cable TV operators currently pay Rs 15 per/subscriber every month as entertainment tax. It has been upped to Rs 50.
Needles to say, cable TV operators will transfer this "burden" to subscribers."Rs 50 is ostensibly the highest in the country. It's Rs 10 in West Bengal and Rs 40 in New Delhi," said Sushil Kumar, director of the Darsh Digital Network.
Sources attributed the hike to the loss of around Rs 5,000 crore as revenue to the government due to prohibition. Besides, the state government is also required to raise its revenue to meet the expenses of Rs 2.7 lakh crore for execution of the seven resolves of chief minister Nitish Kumar.
A commercial taxes department statement on Wednesday said the government has fixed a collection target of Rs 22,000 crore in the fiscal 2016-17. Additional sources of revenue are required to be identified, and cable TV entrainment tax is a major contributor to the department's revenue, the statement said.
There are around four lakh cable TV subscribers in Patna alone. The average monthly cable TV charge in Patna varies from Rs. 250 to 350, which includes Rs 92 as the base charge, on which the local cable operators charge 65% as their commission.
"We were already contemplating raising the base charge to Rs 112, and the entertainment tax hike will add another Rs 35 to the subscriber's bill," Darsh's Kumar said and explained those paying Rs 250 currently would have to pay a little over Rs 300 from the next month.