Patna, (Bihar Times): The annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said that the Bihar government has suffered a revenue loss of Rs 607.01 crore because of large-scale misappropriation of fund, fraudulent payment and doubtful execution of work during 2006-07. It exposed widespread corruption in various government departments. It also pointed out huge gap between Budget Estimate (BE) and actual revenue receipts in most government departments.

After tabling the CAG report for 2006-07 in the Assembly on Wednesday, Principal Accountant General (Audit), Arun Kumar Singh, said said because of all these factors the state government was able to raise only 20 per cent of the total revenue from different sources, compared to more than 23 per cent in the previous financial year (2005-06) itself. He said the revenue collection in Bihar had reached an alarming stage. Because of corruption at all level it has reached an all time low.

Among other things the report revealed that only 11 per cent of road network could be built in the
flood-ravaged districts of Bihar during the past five years. It held complete failure of internal control mechanism and large scale corruption as the factors responsible for the deplorable condition of roads in the state.

The report also said that the contract management was also weak as reflected in the award of work to bidders and as a result of total failure of the internal control mechanism, no or very little bitumen was lifted from the Indian Oil Corporation. Bitumen is used for the construction of roads.

The CAG report thus knocked at the bottom of the state government’s argument that the railways was not transporting bitumen. Only last week the railway minister Lalu Yadav srongly refuted this allegation of the state road construction minister, Nand Kishore Yadav. With the CAG coming down so heavily, the state government has been left with no excuse for its failure to build roads in Bihar. The report thus puts a question mark before the the huge capital expenditure planned by the Bihar government to provide basic infrastructure.

Similarly, while the sale of vehicles, registration of flats and business activities have increased in the state the report said that against the Budget Estimate of Rs 350 crore on taxes on vehicles for the year 2006-07, the actual receipt was only Rs 181.38 crore. The reason given by the department for this fall pertains to the decrease in the rate of taxes.

One of the important reasons for lowering the rate of taxes had been expectation for an increase in the registration of vehicles inside the state, but the move seems to have back-fired.

The receipts from the registration of flats in 2006-07 says the same sad story. As against the BE of Rs 700 crore, the actual receipt from stamp duty and registration was only Rs 455 crore––a huge fall of Rs 244.98 crore.

The sales tax department also presents a grim picture. The report says that against the budget estimate of Rs 2364.67 crore the actual receipt was only Rs 2081.49 crores. The state excise department also failed to meet the BE expectation by 11.98 per cent––Rs 381.93 crores instead of Rs 400 crore.

The CAG report said that the high expenditure incurred in the gross collection of major revenue recipts as compared to all-India average was other area of concern.

The report brought to notice the fraudulent payments, doubtful and unfruitful expenditure and misutilization of funds totalling Rs 175.67 crore. Water resources department with Rs 2.38 crore was the main culprit to be followed by revenue and land reforms deparment, (Rs 2.10 crore), forest and environment department (Rs 1,43 crore), road construction department (Rs 1.17 crore), building construction deparment (Rs 1.11 crore) etc.

Experts are of the view that the CAG report is a wake-up call for the Nitish government as, according to it, things have turned from bad to worse.