CAG Reveals 500 Crores Scam in Fadnavis led Maharashtra Government.

CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India), the country’s largest audit agency has revealed irregularities of around 500 crores in the CM Devendra Fadnavis led Maharashtra Government. The irregularities were revealed by the audit report of CAG.

The Maharashtra state government is already seen under debts, now the irregularities revealed by the CAG audit report will be a major setback.

According to Jansatta, The audit revealed the irregularities in the state for the year 2016–17. In the report presented by the CAG, the traffic department reported irregularities of around 4.5 crores, while in the other departments more than 60 crores of financial irregularities have been detected.

The audit reports regarding irregularities have been classified into two categories Non-Short Levy Tax and Miscellaneous. Under the Non-Short Levy Tax Category, reports revealed 194 cases of financial irregularities in which 11.93 crores fraud is reported, while in the other 119 cases, the biggest scam of Rs 449.08 crores has been revealed.

Under section 3 (1) of Maharashtra Motor Vehicle Tax Act 1958, the government levies tax on bus transport and other vehicles. Between March 2015 and February 2017, records of seven RTO offices were checked. When the CAG found it was found that taxes of 52.32 lakhs from 97 buses were not recovered. Not only this, RTO has not sent a notice to the bus owners.

Only seven lakh rupees have been recovered in 14 cases after submitting the audit report of CAG. Similarly, 26.72 lakh rupees have not been recovered from 123 freight traffic vehicles. The Traffic Department has not even recovered 25.25 lakh rupees from cranes and heavy vehicles. These scams are linked to the RTO office located in Mumbai East, West, Nashik, Ambajogai, Kalyan, Panvel and Vashi.

CAG also revelaed scams in state excise, education cess, employment guarantee cess of around 55.26 crores in 412 cases. After the CAG report was presented, the concerned authority recovered 50.21 crores from 398 cases. In addition to that 6 crores of other financial irregularities were also revealed.

CAG said that the notice was issued to the government in June 2017, but till February 2018, there was no response from the government.