PANJIM: The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for the year ended March 31, 2020, tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Friday, has exposed several irregularities and wasteful expenditures to the tune of hundreds of crores by various Goa government departments.
The CAG stated that the Directorate of Panchayat leased premises for three years for shifting their office. The premises remained unoccupied/partially occupied for 25 months due to delayed decisions on the proposals for furnishing.
The rent paid during the unoccupied period was Rs 2.95 crore which was infructuous.
The Directorate of Mines and Geology (DMG) failed to ensure the collection of royalty for the extraction and sale of sand. This resulted in the extraction and sale of sand by 55 permit holders without payment of royalty. Further, the DMG had no information on the quantity of sand extracted by another 144 permit holders.
The CAG has further observed that the Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) lost out as part of the compromise formula for a refund of amounts received from seven allottees on the cancellation of allotment of land in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
The GIDC worked out a settlement amount of Rs 256.57 crore. The amount however included construction license fee and interest charged for delay in receipt of license fee from allottees, totalling Rs 17.32 crore, which was paid to local bodies on behalf of allotters/SEZ developers.
The CAG observed that the State’s premier financial institution Economic Development Corporation Limited (EDCL) did not recover a transfer fee of Rs 5.04 crore for the non-utilisation of the plot for over three decades.
The EDC allotted a plot in 1986 to Hindustan Hotels Ltd, on lease for the construction of a hotel building. The plot was subsequently transferred twice but none of the transferees made any investment for the completion of the project and the plot remained unused even after three decades. Thus, the EDCL also short-collected transfer fee to the tune of Rs 5.04 crore on the second transfer.
Also, sub-division II of division XXI of the Public Works Department (PWD) was regularly delaying the remittance of revenue collected through receipt books to the divisional cash book resulting in the diversion of funds and delayed remittance into the treasury. The absence of internal controls led to the misappropriation of cash receipts to the tune of Rs 10 lakh from the government account in September 2019.
Further, the Goa Housing Board did not comply with the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961 regarding payment of advance tax and filing of the return, resulting in a levy of penal interest of Rs 70.69 lakh under the Act, which was avoidable.
Revenue Sector Commercial Taxes Department Assessing Authority failed to levy an entry tax of Rs 3.18 crore on the inter-State purchase of goods used as raw material for liquor manufacturing units not exempted under the Act.
The luxury tax of Rs 4.14 crore was exempted by the Assessing Authority even though the assessee did not fulfil the criteria for exemption set under the Goa Tax on Luxuries Act (GTLA). As per the notification, appeal cases can be admitted only on payment of 10 % of the disputed amount. However, scrutiny of appeal cases revealed that 22 appeal cases were admitted without collecting 10 per cent of the disputed amount aggregating Rs 3.13 crore.
The Registration Department, the Civil Registrar and Sub-Registrar (CRSR) office, Pernem did not consider the fair market value of land determined by the Collector while executing sale deeds resulting in a short levy of stamp duty and registration fee of Rs 20.63 lakh.
The Directorate of Fisheries had to forego the levy of Goods and Service Tax (GST) of Rs 26.80 lakh on renting immovable property, due to a delay in registration under GST.
The Directorate of Fire and Emergency Services collected charges from private institutes for use of barracks and ground for only 30 candidates and not on the basis of total candidates for the entire lease period resulting in a short collection of Rs 12.32 crore.
