Bihar govt incur revenue loss of 781.66 cr last yr

Patna, July 17: Largescale corruption in most of the departments has forced the Bihar government to incur a loss of non-tax revenue to the tune of Rs 781.66 crore, besides experiencing a dip in the collection of taxes during 2005-06.

This was revealed in the annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for 2005-06, which was placed in both the Houses of Bihar Legislature yesterday, leading to filing of charges and counter-charges by the members.

Later speaking to newspersons to elaborate various aspects of the comprehensive report, Prinicipal Accountant General (Audit), of Bihar A K Singh said following thorough investigations of the records of the state Commercial taxes, excise, land revenue, mininig and some others departments, it was revealed that primarily because of largescale corruption and lackadaisical attitutes of the employees, the state had lost a huge amount of Rs 781.66 crore in one year only in terms of non tax revenue, during the year under review.

''If such a review could be conducted in all the government departments, the loss could be much higher,'' Mr Singh pointed out and said the amount (Rs 781.66 crore) was calculated on the basis of a random survey of 3,833 cases.

This apart as many as 181 cases were found where officials of the concerned department had accepted 'under-estimated assesment' amount, which led to a further loss of Rs 14.56 crore to the state exchequer, Mr Singh informed.

Moreover, he said, the number of inspection reports which were issued upto December 2005 but not settled by August 2006, had involved a mind boggling Rs 2,628.21 crore primarily because of non-receipt of satisfactory reply from the concerned authorities about their collection.

Severely criticising the role of various commercial tax circles in the state, the PAG said because of non-payment of short levy, surchage and penalty, these circles had lost more than Rs 35 crore in one year, while 20 Excise offices had incurred an additional loss of excise duty to the tune of Rs 24.46 crore during 2005-06.

Referring to the poor state of affairs in the Land Revenue department, Mr Singh quoting from the report said different arrears of Rs 113.76 crore were pending for collection till March 2006, while in Purnia alone, huge government Khas land were sold illegally leading to a loss of revenue to the state government to the tune of Rs 140.51 crore.

About the situation in the multi-crore rupee mininig industry in the state, the report said as many as 739 brick klins operated illegally without obtaining any valid permit. This had also led to the revenue loss of more than Rs 14 crore to the state government during the year under review.

As a result of all these the total revenue collection in Bihar amounting to Rs 4,083.40 crore had now dipped to as low as 23 per cent of the total revenue receipt of Rs 13,753.31 crore, majority of which came from the Centre.

This had made Bihar one of the lowest self-revenue generating states in the region, while on the other hand its overall expenditure had been shooting up steadily by all counts, Mr Singh added.

UNI