CAG indicts Excise dept on revenue loss

Bhopal, Mar 31 (UNI) The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has indicted the Excise department of the Madhya Pradesh government for non-realisation of revenue and failure to recover excise duty from licencees and incorrect allowance of wastages resulting in revenue loss.

''Non-assessment, under-assessment, loss of revenue and non-levy of penalty amounting to Rs 77.12 crore in 5,405 cases were noticed during test check of records of Excise during 2005-06'', said the CAG report (commercial) for the year ending March 31, 2006 presented in the Assembly on Thursday.

Licences of 32 retail liquor shops in Chhindwara, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Ratlam districts were granted for 2004-05 for an aggregate licence fee of Rs 7.95 crore. The licencees were required to deposit security of Rs 1.32 crore.

Of this, 20 licencees did not deposit licencee fee at all, while 12 licencees deposited only Rs 9.39 lakh. As such, basic licence fee of Rs 71.69 lakh and security deposited by the licencee was required to be forfeited and shops were required to be resold.

The department, however, allowed the licencees to run the liquor shops, the report said.

The CAG pointed out that all licencees defaulted in making payment of fortnightly instalment of licence fee and no action for cancellation of licence was taken in 13 cases, while licences of remaining 19 shops were cancelled after a lapse of one to 9 months from the date of default.

After cancellation of licences, these shops were either run departmentally or were rendered. During this process, the department suffered a loss of Rs 1.96 crore which was recoverable from the defaulters. However, no action was taken to recover the same from the defaulters, the report added.

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