At an informal discussion today, additional municipal commissioner Ajay Mehta said the rise in octroi collection between April and October this year had been 15 per cent, while the collection last year had been only 4.7 per cent.

Of the 2,319 octroi claims that had been frozen, 52 have been found to be bogus, he said, and a First Information Report (FIR) has been filed against the agents involved.

To make the vigilance squad more effective, there will now be a document-based search to verify the consignment of goods being carried, he said. Of 331 cases of bogus receipts, 14 have been detected and 9 agents named as accused.

``I have discussed the matter with joint commissioner (crime) D Sivanandan, who has told me a gang is probably involved in the issuing of fake receipts,'' Mehta said,adding action has been taken against 61 civic staffers for abetting octroi evasion.

Earlier, Congress leader K A Bastiwalla said the recent raid at Mulund Check Naka carried out jointly by party leaders and Standing Committee chairman Sada Sarwankar revealed the extent of corruption. ``It is not that truckers want to cheat. They are being forced to do so due to the nexus between the civic staff and agents,'' he said, calling for suspension of the head of octroi department and other officers if any corporator carrying out random checks finds octroi evasion. The Shiv Sena's Digambar Kandarkar, who is also House leader, called for restricting the term of the Octroi Assessor and Collector and other senior department officials to three years.

Mehta said that there will be a conscious bid to eliminate the agents' menace by negotiating directly with companies and asking them to deposit a sum for octroi. In this regard, the direct accounting facility will be started. Thereafter, whenever trucks are examined,octroi will be debited and later tallied with the existing balance. Holograms will also be used on receipts in future to curb bogus.

Enforcement squads were brought in on August 12, 1999 to break the nexus between officials and agents. In the last two months, they have managed to recover Rs 1.9 crore. Staffers are being given duties on rotation so that no official has monopoly over payment. The classification of goods has been simplified, and efforts are being made to reduce the N-forms given out.