Compliance Performance
Jharkhand

Report No. 1 of 2020 - Revenue Sector, Government of Jharkhand for the year ended 31 march 2018

Date on which Report Tabled:
Mon 21 Sep, 2020
Date of sending the report to Government:
Fri 31 Jul, 2020
Government Type:
State
Sector Transport & Infrastructure,Taxes and Duties

Overview

The Audit Report (Revenue Sector) of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India Government of Jharkhand for the year ended 31 March 2018 prepared under Article 151(2) of the Constitution of India was presented to the Jharkhand Legislature on 21 September 2020.

This Report contains a Performance Audit on “Acquisition and Alienation of land in Jharkhand” and eight paragraphs relating to taxes on sales, trade etc., state excise, taxes on vehicles, land revenue and stamps and registration fees. The total financial implication of the Report is ₹ 886.47 crore. The Departments/Government have accepted 37.39 per cent of our observations.

The major findings of Performance Audit on “Acquisition and Alienation of land in Jharkhand” are:

1. The contradiction between the Jharkhand Treasury Code and the Jharkhand Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Rules, 2015 as well as the contradictory instructions of the Department resulted in parking of funds received from the requiring bodies in banks instead of depositing these in “8443- Civil Deposit”. An amount of ₹ 1,494.39 crore received for land acquisition were lying in the bank accounts as on 31 March 2018 in the eight sampled districts.

(Paragraph 4.2.7.1)

2. Even after issuance of Government orders that funds relating to land acquisition should be kept in each district in one bank account, and in special circumstances, in maximum two bank accounts, 104 bank accounts, against permissible number of 18, were in operation as on 31 March 2018 in nine test-checked offices. Further, on 287 occasions, funds aggregating to ₹ 1,255.80 crore was shifted from one bank to another without reasons and sanction from the higher authorities on record. Besides, in the sampled offices, differences of ₹ 121.71 crore between the balances as per cash book and bank accounts as on 31 March 2018 were not reconciled.

(Paragraphs 4.2.7.2 and 4.2.7.3)

3. Absence of provisions for depositing accrued interest besides improper maintenance of records for accounting of interest accrued resulted in non-accountal/remission of interest amounting to ₹ 42.77 crore.

(Paragraph 4.2.7.5)

4. Declaration for land acquisition were published despite short receipt of fund amounting to ₹ 84.01 crore in three land acquisition cases and also handed over the possession of land to requiring bodies in two cases.

(Paragraph 4.2.8.3)

5. Excess preparation of award, establishment and contingency charges of ₹ 368.94 crore due to incorrect guidelines, misclassification of land and incorrect application of market value of land for computation of compensation in 54 land acquisition cases.

(Paragraph 4.2.8.4)

6. Irregular deduction of income tax from the amount of award, non-computation of addition compensation for land acquisition under emergency provisions and non-revision of award as per departmental instruction resulted in short calculation/payment of award amounting to ₹ 101.36 crore.

(Paragraph 4.2.8.5)

7. Application of incorrect rate of land by treating as agricultural land instead of commercial led to short realisation of salami, rent and cess amounting to ₹ 181.98 crore in four projects.

(Paragraph 4.2.9.3)

8. There was non/short realisation of Government revenue amounting to ₹ 83.46 crore in 114 cases and delayed realisation of ₹ 64.10 crore in 69 cases of alienation of land.

(Paragraph 4.2.9.4)

The Report also contains the following significant findings:

Taxes on sales, trade etc.

1. The Assessing Authorities levied tax on disallowed claims of exemptions, concessions, or incorrect adjustment of Input Tax Credit of ₹ 95.01 crore in case of six dealers. However, interest of ₹ 10.45 crore was not levied.

(Paragraph 2.3)

2. The Assessing Authority enhanced the turnover of two dealers on account of concealment of purchases and levied additional tax of ₹ 2.25 crore but did not levy interest of ₹ 3.93 crore as per the provisions of the Act.

(Paragraph 2.4)

Taxes on vehicles

3. Non-raising of demands and weak internal controls led to non-realisation of tax and penalty of ₹ 15.48 crore from 5,068 defaulting transport vehicles.

(Paragraph 3.3)

4. Absence of mechanism for periodical review of authorisation for national permits resulted in non-renewal of authorisation and consequential non-realisation of consolidated/authorisation fees amounting to ₹ 2.38 crore including late fine.

(Paragraph 3.4)

Stamp duty and registration fees

5. Failure to ensure that mining leases are registered on the basis of verification of the average annual royalty as per the approved mining plan resulted in incorrect valuation of documents and consequential short levy of stamp duty and registration fees of ₹ 12.43 crore in 10 district sub-registrar offices.

(Paragraph 4.6)

6. Due to lack of validation controls and ambiguity in the notification regarding exemption in stamp duty and registration fee to women, the Department failed to detect duplicate beneficiaries resulting in short levy of stamp duty and registration fee amounting to ₹ 1.01 crore.

(Paragraph 4.7)

State excise

7. The Department did not take action to ensure lifting of minimum guaranteed quota which resulted in short lifting of liquor by 132 vendors during 2015-16 and 2016-17 in five excise districts and non-levy of penalty equivalent to loss of excise duty of ₹ 2.86 crore. 

(Paragraph 4.10)

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