Minor minerals worth Rs 4,624 crore extracted illegally in seven years: CAG

BHUBANESWAR: The latest CAG report has revealed that minor minerals with a royalty value of Rs 4,624.58 crore was extracted unlawfully and used in public projects during 2015-22 with the knowledge of the Odisha government.
Due to this, the government lost mineral revenue to the tune of Rs 864.45 crore as those in charge of public projects did not collect charges towards district mineral fund (DMF) and environment management fund (EMF) from the bills of contractors due to non-production of transit passes in support of procurement of minor minerals from authorised sources.
The CAG report brought out large-scale irregularities in mining, sale, transport and use of minor minerals in public projects and revealed that contractors supplied minor minerals for public projects without submitting valid transit passes in Form-Y and money receipts in support of payment of royalty for procurement from authorised sources.
The authorities in charge of public projects deducted royalty amounting to Rs 4,624.58 crore from the bills of the contractors due to non-production of valid transit passes and purchase receipts in support of procurement from authorised sources.

For the 2016-22 period, a total of Rs 885.70 crore towards additional charge, DMF and EMF on royalty was to be realised. However, only Rs 21.25 crore was realised against Rs 399.91 crore in 14 districts.
In the remaining 16 districts, there was no collection at all against the due of Rs 485.79 crore.
This resulted in non-collection of mineral revenue of Rs 864.45 crore in the state.
Records of tehsils by the CAG revealed that Rs 107.64 crore was collected towards royalty from authorised leaseholders, while the authorities in charge of public projects deducted Rs 588.35 crore from the bills of contractors due to non-production of transit passes during 2015-22.
The CAG has pulled up the tehsildars for not obtaining information on the quantities of different category-wise minor minerals supplied by the contractors and used in public projects without valid transit passes. They also had not raised demand for payment of additional charge, DMF and EMF on royalty deducted from their bills along with the cost of minerals used.
The audit watchdog also brought to fore irregularities in bidding, excessive mining in several districts, mining without lease holding and negligence of the government officials in its report. As per information furnished by the Revenue and Disaster Management department, there were 4,106 minor mineral sources in the state and 1,837 minor mineral sources in the nine sample districts.
Out of the 1,618 sources, 688 sources in the sampled districts were operational.