CAG pulls up Kerala again for off-budget borrowings
The CAG report says that the off-budget borrowings of the kind availed by the KIIFB are adding to the debt burden of the Kerala government.
The Comptroller Auditor General of India ( CAG) has detected a financial loss of Rs 3640 crore for the Uttar Pradesh government by five departments due to negligence and irregularities.
These irregularities are mentioned in the civil/revenue report of the CAG, ending the financial year March 31, 2021, tabled in the state assembly on Tuesday.
Of these top five departments incurred loss of revenue, State GST is on the top, The Excise Department is on the second number, Mining on the third, Stamp and Registration on the fourth and Vehicle and Passenger Tax Department on the fifth.
The CAG report has exposed that the State Tax Department (State GST) is not able to curb the cases of wrongly given Input Tax Credit (ITC). Out of Rs 1,525 crore irregularities in State GST, about Rs 1,446 crore cases are related to bogus ITC alone. About Rs 31 crore was returned in excess of the cash ledger and Rs 27 crore was given to the developers without paying tax.
On the other hand, in the CAG investigation of the Excise Department, a scam of Rs 1,276 crore was detected. This was revealed in the investigation of 2519 files of 29 units out of 128 units. The biggest loss in this was due to recording of less consumption of excise material in the documents. There was a revenue loss of Rs 1078 crore under this head. The officials caused a loss of Rs 164 crore by not taking the license fee.
The CAG conducted a sample check of stamp duty and mortgage documents in 60 sub-registrar offices of the Stamp and Registration Department. In these, irregularities involving more than Rs 351 crore were detected in 708 cases. In which more than 300 crore cases were related to the stamp imposed on the mortgage documents.
The mining department is also not lagging behind in irregularities. In the investigation, the CAG examined the documents of 13 District Mines Offices of the state. In which it was found in 3588 cases that royalty was either taken less or not taken at all. In this way a total loss of Rs 440 crore was done to the exchequer. It was found in the investigation that royalty of Rs 119 crore was not recovered at all. More than Rs 6 crores were wasted by imposing less stamp duty on the leases.
Reports said irregularities of about Rs 48 crore were also detected in the investigation of the Vehicle, Goods and Passenger Tax Department. The CAG found these irregularities in the examination of 16,379 files of 11 out of 76 units. In this, the maximum number of 4165 cases were such, in which tax recovery of Rs 25 crore was reduced. Keeping the recovery certificates in cold storage also resulted in loss of revenue to the tune of Rs 10 crore.
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