Bihar Govt suffers loss of revenue of Rs 607 crore last year : CAG

Patna, Mar 26 (UNI) The Bihar government has suffered a revenue loss of Rs 607.01 crore following largescale misappropriation of fund, fraudulent payment and doubtful execution of work during 2006-07, the Comptroller and Auditor General Of India in its last annual report said.

After laying the CAG report for 2006-07 in the Assembly today, Principal Accountant General(Audit) Arun Kumar Singh here said because of all the factors the state government was able to raise only 20 per cent of the total revenue from different sources, compared to more than 23 per cent in the previous year itself.

Stating that the revenue collection in Bihar had reached an alarming stage besides becoming an all time low, Mr Singh said largescale corruption at different level had led to the present situation.

Unless drastic steps were taken, there was very little hope of improving the situation in the coming years, he cautioned.

He said following detection of as many as 4643 cases of misappropriation and fraudulent payment in more than 15 government departments during last year, the CAG officials had detected loss of revenue to the tune of more than Rs 600 crore of which the government had already accepted its deficiencies to the tune of Rs 237.82 crore in 746 cases and promised to take stringent action against erring officials.

He claimed largescale irregularities in several state and Central government schemes like the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme, sinking of tubewell programme, wage employment programme and projects related to construction and maintenance of roads in the flood-affected districts.

Mr Singh said in all these schemes either huge sums were spent without creating any basic infrasturure or crores of rupees of fraudulent payment had been made without verifying the authenticity of the execution.

As a result, the Principal Accountant General pointed out that against the targetted revenue generation of Rs 4,644.36 crore, the Bihar governmenrt could raise only Rs 4,043.08 crore.

UNI ABA SJC/src2006