Delay in communicating the board’s decision on revision in land rates in the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) resulted in loss of revenue of Rs 21.98 crore to the State, the recently-released report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on the state’s public sector undertakings has said.
The MIDC was established with the objective of creating infrastructure for rapid and orderly establishment of industries in the state. The corporation revises the lease premium rate for allotment of land from time to time in various industrial estates run by it. Based on the decision of the board, the revised rates are communicated by the corporate officer to its field offices for implementation. The plots are allotted at the prevailing rate on the date of offer letter issued to the applicant.
The CAG scrutinised the issue in six industrial areas where the lease premium rates were revised between April 2013 and March 2015. The report observed that the board, while revising the lease premium rates, did not specify the dates from which such revision in rates would be applicable.
The report said: “The decisions of the board revising the rates were communicated with a delay ranging from 61 to 104 days by the land section of the corporation to the field offices. At the Regional Offices where allotments of land were made during the intervening period, delay in communication of the revised rates by the corporate office to its field offices resulted in allotment of land at the pre-revised rates and consequential loss of revenue of Rs 21.98 crore to the corporation,” the report observed.
For example, Butibori Industrial Area, Nagpur, which faced a delay of 104 days in getting the revised land rates, the old price was Rs. 520 per sq.m. while the price of land had been revised to Rs. 1,150 per sq. m. Similarly, in Shirala in Western Maharashtra’s Sangli district, the price had been revised from Rs. 55 per sq.m. to Rs. 320 per sq.m., which was was not implemented for 82 days.
The CAG report has specifically pointed out problems in industrial areas in Chief Minister Devendra Fandavis’s hometown Nagpur, saying transparency and fairness in allotment of land and its subsequent follow-up could not be established due to non-maintenance of basic records by the regional office.
Apart from the land rates, the CAG report blamed the MIDC for slackness in finalising tenders within the validity period, which resulted in consequent re-tendering and extra expenditure of Rs. 1.80 crore, besides delays in commencement and completion of works related to maintenance facilities in industrial estates.
The report has pointed out problems in industrial areas in CM Fandavis’s hometown Nagpur
