Accounts of state power utilities window- dressed

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government has been indulging in some serious bluffing while glossing over the accounts of the power utilities and grain procurement agencies.

The CAG report placed in the assembly on Monday evening has revealed that while accounts of the part of the performance and transaction audit of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited ( PSPCL) and Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL) were “refurbished” to look better, the state procurement agencies inflated their outstanding arrears by several hundred crores. The CAG also found a major mismatch between the cash credit limit (CCL) sought by the government when compared to the stock of grain held by the state procurement agencies.

While unbundling the Punjab State Electricity Board, Punjab had placed a financial burden of ` 25,000 crore on the two new corporations–PSPCL and PSTCL--by passing unfunded liabilities on to them. Interestingly, the state government sought to “refurbish their balance sheets” by inflating its equity capital in the two entities by ` 3,700 crore by reflecting consumer contributions and grants and subsidies as equity capital and including re-valued land assets of ` 4,900 crore whose ownership was not vested in the two successor entities.

The CAG report said the state procurement agencies ( SPAs) showed ` 16,350 crore as recoverable, of which ` 11,400 crore had been qualified as doubtful. Moreover, there was a mismatch of ` 21,000 crore between the outstanding CC limit and stock of foodgrains held by these agencies.

Test check of the records of 281 offices of sales tax/value added tax, state excise, motor vehicles, goods and passengers, forest receipts and other departmental offices conducted by the CAG showed under assessment/short levy/loss of revenue aggregating ` 2,500 crore in over 35,000 cases. The departments managed to recover only ` 18.26 crore.