THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Comptroller and Auditor- General (CAG) report has pulled up the state’s Registration Department for not having effective mechanism to check a large number of undervaluation cases and to verify the correctness of stamp duty for documents.
The CAG report for the year ending March 2011, detected undervaluation of documents and other lapses to the tune of ` 47.24 crore in 235 cases.
In the review on ‘Levy and Collection of Stamp Duty and Registration Fees’, the CAG report points out several cases involving money value of `41.29 crore.
‘’We recommend that the department must implement a time-bound action plan to dispose of the huge number of undervaluation cases, particularly by focusing on high money value cases,” the report said.
The loss of revenue due to non-accounting of undervaluation cases amounted to `43.96 crore while potential revenue pending realisation in undervaluation cases is `286.32 crore.
An interesting finding in the CAG report is that non-registration of lease agreements for installing ATMs of banks.
“Most of the ATMs were established in private buildings on long term lease with the building owners. With a view to identify leakage of revenue in different areas, we collected details of 72 lease agreements executed by three banks with building-owners for setting up ATMs in two cities in Kerala,’’ said. The report further says, ‘’It was noticed that out of 72 lease agreements, 38 agreements were not registered even though lease was for a period exceeding one year and liable for compulsory registration. The revenue loss involved in respect of 38 lease agreements alone works out to `3.5 crore.’’