Lapses detected in assortment of consent payment from establishments as per environmental guidelines
Lapses detected in assortment of consent payment from establishments as per environmental guidelines
An audit of the accounts and data of the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB) by the Principal Accountant General has revealed lapses on the a part of the board in amassing the obligatory consent payment from varied establishments as per the environmental legal guidelines.
Consent payment, which stays a significant income supply for the board, is collected to fulfill a part of the expenditure concerned in its capabilities, together with processing and difficulty of consent to determine / function certificates, conducting inspections, and to analyse effluent and water samples. It is fastened based mostly on the capital funding for the venture.
The audit carried out by the Office of the Principal Accountant General (Audit-II) in Thrissur confirmed that the non-levy of the obligatory consent payment from ports and fishing harbours amounted to 10.86 crore. The inspection lined the interval from August 1, 2016 to February 28, 2022.
The audit estimated that round ₹3.29 crore was pending by way of consent payment from railway stations / items yards. While the consent payment to be collected from railway stations was about ₹2.96 crore, the quantity pending beneath the part of products sheds / rake sidings is almost ₹1 crore.
The non-collection of consent payment from operators of poultry stalls will work out to round ₹9.24 crore based mostly on the inference that Kerala has over 16,000 poultry stalls (included beneath the orange class of classification). The quantity of ₹9.24 crore was arrived at based mostly on the calculation of a payment of ₹550 per unit yearly for a interval of 10.5 years.
The non-collection of consent payment from quarry operators was estimated at ₹6.63 crore. The inspection additionally revealed that no consent payment was collected from scrap retailers throughout the interval, and the shortfall amounted to round ₹5.25 crore based mostly on the inference that the State has greater than 10,000 scrap assortment centres.
PCB Chairman A.B. Pradeep Kumar stated the reply to queries raised within the audit could be furnished earlier than the auditors.
Source: www.thehindu.com
