BHUBANESWAR: After a whopping growth in revenue collection in last two years despite the Covid pandemic, the earnings from the minor mineral sector have dipped by around 20 per cent (pc) in the first two quarters. The minor minerals sector is one of the most potential sources of government revenue.
Official sources said, of the annual target of Rs 1,500 crore revenue from the minor mineral resources, the state government has collected around Rs 512.6 crore revenue by the end of November last year.“The target till November was Rs 645 crore, of which around 80 pc has been collected. The collection during the April-November period was only 34 pc of the annual target and the districts will have to achieve the remaining 66 pc of the target in three months,” said an official of Revenue and Disaster Management department.
The collection has been below the target in almost all districts except Jajpur, Keonjhar and Koraput while the target and achievement gap is high in big districts, including Ganjam, Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj, Cuttack, Khurda, Jajpur and Dhenkanal.Ganjam has been given the highest annual target of Rs 115 crore, followed by Sundargarh Rs 110 crore, Jajpur Rs 90 crore, Mayurbhanj Rs 88 crore, Cuttack Rs 85 crore and Dhenkanal and Khurda Rs 70 crore each.
The collection was Rs 40.5 crore in Ganjam district, Rs 36.7 crore in Sundargarh, Rs 32.7 crore in Mayurbhanj and Rs 26 crore in Cuttack as compared to the target of Rs 49.5 crore, Rs 47.3 crore, Rs 37.8 crore and Rs 36.5 crore respectively.Sources said the collection dropped as a number of minor mineral sources are yet to be operationalised in most of the districts apart from rampant illegal mining activities across districts.
Director of minor minerals Subham Saxena has directed the districts to take stock of the situation of poor performing tehsils and tehsildars to make all out effort to achieve the target of revenue collection.He has also asked the tehsildars to take immediate steps to operationalise the non-operationalised mineral sources under their jurisdiction at the earliest and keep a tab on the illegal mining.
Since a substantial part of the revenue collection comes from royalty deduction by executing agencies from the work bills of different developmental works, the director suggested to ensure full remittance of royalty amount before the end of the financial year.