PUDUCHERRY: Former Lok Sabha member M Ramadass on Tuesday sought a probe into Puducherry government’s mounting arrears for speedy collection of revenue. Taking note of financial lapses leading to squandering of public money as pointed out in the CAG report for 2019-2020, he asked the government to constitute a committee of Secretaries to evaluate the report and suggest courses of action to make future Budgets judicious.
Out of entitled Rs 7,885.41 crore, only Rs 6,781 crore was mobilised leaving Rs 1104.41 crore as arrears of revenue which constituted 16 per cent of the total revenue. Nearly half of this arrears remained outstanding for more than five years. The CAG report says, the potential revenue has been lost due to the delay in assessment of Commercial Taxes on time and instances of tax evasion in GST and sales tax.