MAPUSA
Armed with the Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) report which has pointed to serious lapses in the excise department, the Opposition on Wednesday hit out at the government for the losses incurred due to leakages in excise collection and failure to take action against erring officials.
However, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said the loss shown by CAG was notional and in fact, the revenue from excise collection has gone up by 10.46 percent.
Referring to the damning CAG report, Velim MLA Cruz Silva said that the central auditor has pointed to serious lapses and indicted the excise department for failure to increase the revenue in corresponding years.
“The State earned excise revenue of 28 per cent in 2017-18 which went down to 17 per cent in 2018-19 and further dipped to 3 per cent in 2019-20. The excise officials were responsible for crores of revenue losses. After the CAG indictment, the government has transferred four officers. Can transfer be treated as punishment?” Silva asked.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant informed the House that as per the CAG report excise department has incurred a notional loss of Rs 7.59 crore.
“We have given clarification to all the queries raised by the CAG. The excise revenue has increased by 10.46 percent,” Sawant said and added that the government was deliberating on the suggestions/observations made by the CAG and a series of steps were taken in this regard.
He said a special team of excise inspectors was formed to visit the licenced premises to get the licences renewed while the inspectors were also directed to recover the additional fee from hotels having casinos.
“The department has started an internal ‘audit cell’ to audit all the excise stations and manufacturing units. Also an ‘enforcement cell’ has been created for strict enforcement of rules and regulations,” he said.
Latching on to the findings of the CAG, Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai said the excise department has been following a flawed licence system which showed that several licences were not renewed causing loss to the department.
“The CAG report has brought the cat out of the bag. We say it’s a scam but the government maintains it’s a notional loss of Rs 7.59 crore. How much of the lost money has been recovered by the government?” Sardesai queried.
Leader of Opposition Yuri Alemao termed the internal audit a failure and asked the government to table the report in the House.
“It shows the excise department was sleeping. It is clearly a scam,” Alemao lashed out.
Benaulim MLA Venzy Viegas said the government has failed to provide details of revenue collected of different brands of alcohol saying that the data was “voluminous”.
“Does the government have a mechanism to check brand-wise sale of alcohol in Goa?” Viegas asked.
Defending the excise department from the opposition onslaught, the CM said from time to time an internal audit has been conducted and the government has also taken prompt action and even recovered lost money.
