Eight PSUs, five corporations incur losses in Punjab: CAG

Chandigarh, Mar 30: Of the over 50 state- owned Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) in Punjab, eight government companies and five statutory corporations have incurred a loss of Rs 3,93,472 crore.

According to the CAG report of 2006 released here today, of the loss-incurring working government companies, six had accumulated losses aggregating to Rs 130.78 crore, which exceeds their paid-up capital of Rs 10.40 crore by almost twelve times, while four loss making corporations had a loss of Rs 5,00,4,18 crore, which exceeds the paid-up capital of Rs 2,965.68 crore.

The report noted that even after 27 years, the individual turnover of four government companies had been less than Rs five crore for the last five years. One of the non-working government companies despite being in existence for more than 14 years, could not commence business activities.

The report suggested that the government may either improve its performance or consider closure of such loss making companies.

Criticising the Punjab Agro Foodgrains Corporation, the report said the performance of the company with regard to procurement, storage and milling of paddy was sub-optimal due to lack of control over milling operations and failure to follow the terms of custom milling policy and agreements with the millers.

The Corporation failed to take remedial measures to ensure delivery of quality rice despite CAG pointing this earlier too. This time again misappropriation of 16,834 metric tonnes of rice in six districts caused a loss of Rs 3,1,95 crore , besides there was incorrecting billing.

Regarding Pepsu (transport),the CAG report said of the 561 bus routes till March 31 last year, 99,11 per cent were uneconomical, resulting into a financial burden of Rs 76.55 crore during 2001-06. As bus fares were not raised and the diesel cost went up, Pepsu suffered a loss of Rs 53.66 crores. The report said one-time settlement schemes with profit-making units resulted in a loss of Rs 31.91 crore to the Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation Ltd. The failure of Punjab State Tubewell Corporation to limit employers contribution towards employees' provident fund resulted in excess contribution of Rs 7.03 crore.

Inclusion of depreciation on less quantity of gunny bags in the rates of rice resulted in short reimbursement of Rs 3.05 crore to Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation, the report noted.

Besides the failure of the Corporatrion to raise claim of transporation charges from FCI resulted in blockage of Rs 29.13 crore and consequential loss of interest of Rs 2.34 crore.

The failure of Punjab State Grains Corporation to raise transportation charges for FCI resulted in blockage of Rs 32.94 crore, the report noted.

The CAG report also made critical references to a few other state owned corporations.

UNI