Team Herald
PANJIM: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is supporting crony capitalists going by the cess waivers and uncollected money from casinos and coal, alleged Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC), on Saturday.
GPCC president Amit Patkar alleged that at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s behest, the then Parrikar government reduced green cess on coal from two per cent to 0.5 per cent to benefit crony capitalists, resulting in a loss of Rs 6,500 cr to the State.
Patkar charged that the insensitive BJP government was harassing the common people by disconnecting their water and electricity connections for non-payment of nominal dues but was deliberately ignoring to recover Rs 10,187.62 cr from crony companies. This includes mining dues of Rs 257 cr, power bill arrears from commercial, industrial and government of Rs 2214.73 cr, dues from casinos of Rs 349.89 cr, Goa Rural Improvement and Welfare Cess dues up to 2018 of Rs 366 cr, etc.
Goa Rural Improvement and Welfare Cess dues from 2019 to 2024 of Rs 500 cr approximate and green cess of Rs 6,500 cr approximately.
The government had taken kickbacks from all the defaulting companies and in turn had turned a blind eye on initiating recovery proceedings, he added.
“We have written a letter to the Chief Secretary demanding that government must initiate steps to start the recoveries of these huge Outstanding dues immediately. We have also demanded that the government must immediately withdraw the consent given by Goa State Pollution Control Board and permissions given by various government authorities to all the companies, who had not cleared their pending dues,” stated Patkar.
The financial burden on the State had now touched Rs 36,000 cr resulting in liability of Rs 2.40 cr on every Goan. However, the bad fiscal management by the government, which had resulted in the State going into bankruptcy and the common people facing financial emergency. Misplaced priorities of the government had resulted in complete neglect of recovery of thousands of cr from various companies, said Patkar.
Patkar warned that if the government fails to take pro-active steps then the Congress Party will be compelled to launch a State-wide agitation to force the government to recover the dues of the State.