KALABURAGI: The NSL sugar factory at Bhusnoor village in Aland taluk was recently found to have not remitted taxes for the last 10 years, and it was also being run without its licence being renewed.
Following this, the Karnataka Information Commission recently issued an order to Zilla Panchayat CEO P Raja asking him to recover the tax amount of Rs 1.71 crore, which was not paid since 2010-11, at the earliest and take action against Bhusnoor Panchayat Development Officer (PDO) for not collecting the tax from the factory.
Based on the complaint from Jagadish K, a resident, the Information Commission issued notices to the factory officials concerned, PDO and to Raja to ascertain the facts. During the enquiry, it came to light that the factory authorities have not remitted the tax and were running the factory without renewing the licence.
The commission had actually issued a notice on collecting the tax in July itself. As its orders were not complied, the commission again held a meeting recently and issued another order in the name of Raja asking him to take steps to collect the tax in the form of state revenue.
Confirming the receipt of the order, Raja said, “The notice has already been issued to the factory and if it fails to remit the tax in the stipulated time, action will be taken against it as per the rules.”Bhusnoor Gram Panchayat vice-president Dastageer Gour said, “Earlier, this factory was a cooperative sugar factory.
As it was running under loss, it was handed over to Renuka Sugar Factory and later they handed it over to NSL factory. The factory has lodged a complaint against the GP members as they insisted it to pay the tax.”