The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has found fault with the Odisha Government’s diversion of forestland.
The CAG report on the audit of expenditure incurred by the State Government in the economic sector for the year ending March 2013, which was placed in the State Assembly here on Monday, has stated that as per the records in 11 forest divisions (from January to March 2013), the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had approved 1,348 hectares of forestland from November 2002 to April 2009 in favour of 10 user agencies for non-forestry purposes, for which Rs97.80 crore was to be realised towards NPV (net present value) at the revised rates at which the State Government has so far collected Rs73.04 crore from the user agencies.
However, the State Government has neither made any effort to realise the balance amount of Rs24.77 crore and nor has it cancelled the project approval to the concerned user agencies in the last eight years, the CAG report has pointed out.
The report also said that the State Government in February this year had stated that out of Rs24.77 crore, Rs2.44 crore has already been deposited by one user agency while in the remaining 10 cases, the defaulting user agencies were being pursued by the concerned Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs) and the Forest and Environment Department for early deposit of the NPV of Rs22.33 crore.
The Government had also stated that it would take steps against the defaulting user agencies in case of further delay in depositing the NPV which it has not done so far, the report added.
The Government may start to investigate soon into the findings by CAG, and the roles of the concerned officials into the matter. It’s unclear till now why the discrepancies have arisen.