The disquiet created by the report of the Comptroller of the Auditor General (CAG) of India, which ticked off the State-run IDCO (Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Odisha) for illegally permitting industrialists to mortgage the Government lands allotted to them, has prompted the Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) to escalate its grievance to the office of the Prime Minister.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, UCCI secretary Debabrata Dash has appealed to rein in the CAG from “overstepping” the limits of its assigned responsibilities and issuing “ill-informed” reports that have the potential to bring the industrial activity in the State to a standstill.
Noting that the PM during his election campaign and also after assuming charge has always given an indication that law and procedure detrimental to any development process would be changed or suitably amended, the UCCI letter has urged for urgent steps to settle the issue before it adversely affects the operation of industries in the State.
Recently, the CAG gave a report on the IDCO pointing out that the corporation has no power to issue authorisation letters to industries to mortgage the lands leased to them for raising finance from financial institutions.
The UCCI has strongly condemned such a report of the CAG and asserted that the IDCO’s activity is well within the parameter of the IDCO Act. The Government directives issued later also support the stand. According to the UCCI, the CAG has not gone through all the relevant documents while preparing its report. The UCCI has also expressed surprise that for the first time CAG chose to disclose the matter at a Press conference.
Dash has appealed to the PM to take note of a couple of facts in this regard. The first is that Industrial Corporations in all other States are following similar practices of giving mortgage rights for the lands allotted by them.
The second is that the financial institution would not extend any loan to any industry without the land on which the factory would come up not being mortgaged to them.