‘UNREALISTIC FUND ALLOCATION WRONG’
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has highlighted revenue leakages to the state exchequer due to negligence of various departments.
According to the CAG report on the revenue sector, the government has lost crores of rupees due to non-levy, short levy of VAT/ CST collections, excise duty, stamp duty and registration fee, taxes on vehicles, land revenue etc.
In 17 offices, 26 dealers had incorrectly declared taxes at lower rates on the sale of commodities such as ACs, electronic weighing scales, confectionary etc.
The application of incorrect rates of tax resulted in short levy of tax of `23.79 crore.
In 12 offices involving 27 cases, sales turnover of textiles and fabrics of `263.76 crore was incorrectly exempted which resulted in non-levy of VAT of `13.19 crore.
The assessing authority levied a penalty of `12.29 crore instead of `24.57 crore for CAG has exposed the Telangana government’s unrealistic budgetary assumptions and weakness in expenditure monitoring.
The top auditor observed that the unrealistic budgetary allocations have resulted in substantial claiming input tax credit based on false tax invoices resulting in a short-levy of penalty of `12.28 crore.
Incorrect classification of lands due to lack of coordination between departments, adoption of incorrect market values, undervaluation of properties and nonadherence to instructions resulted in nonlevy, short-levy of duties and fees amounting to `11 crore.
Tax amounting to `1.80 crore and penalty of `90 lakh were not realised from owners of 1,213 transport vehicles. savings and unnecessary supplementary grants.
In its report, the CAG said, “There were huge accumulations of balances in personal deposit accounts due to drawal of funds in advance of requirements and lapsing of unspent balances at the end of the year”.
The non-renewal of fitness certificates of 53,566 transport vehicles resulted in nonrealisation of fee of `1.19 crore besides compromising on road safety.
In districts, re-survey of land was not conducted for 20 to 60 years. Incorrect preparation of village maps led to land disputes and made 500 acres of government land physically unavailable. Nonfinalisation of alienation proposals resulted in non-realisation of cost of land amounting to `8 crore in five cases.