Odisha to expedite Rs 700 crore dues settlement with Nalco

The state had earlier decided to go for an out-of-court settlement with the central PSU

With revenue collection in this fiscal on the downtrend, the state government has decided to expedite settlement of electricity arrears worth Rs 700 crore with National Aluminium Company (Nalco).

“Earlier, we had decided for an out of court settlement with Nalco for recovering power dues pending on the central PSU. We are going to expedite the settlement with the company”, said an official of the state energy department.

Nalco owes Rs 700 crore towards electricity duty (ED) and Rs 300 crore towards water cess to the government. However, it has disputed the dues and dragged the matter to the court.

While the ED case is pending in the Supreme Court, the water cess issue is yet to be disposed off by the Odisha High Court. Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), a unit of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has ED arrear of Rs 61.25 crore and the matter is sub-judice with the Odisha High Court.

“An out of court settlement with Nalco will help us fetch at least Rs 200 crore”, said a source at the state finance department.

In toto, ED dues worth Rs 1303.51 crore have piled up on different corporate houses and the state government is unable to collect them since the cases are locked up in litigations.

Other industries with ED dues against them are Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Ltd- IMFA (Rs 40.26 crore), Paradeep Phosphates Ltd- PPL (Rs 18.90 crore), Ballarpur Industries Ltd, Jeypore (Rs 33.03 crore), Mangalam Timbers Production Ltd, Nabarangpur (Rs 13 lakh), Shree Mahavir Ferro Alloys Ltd, Sundargarh (Rs 6.74 crore), Bindal Sponge Pvt Ltd- Talcher (Rs 7.09 crore), Maithan Ispat Ltd- Jajpur (Rs 16.83 crore), OSWAL Chemicals & Fertilizers Ltd (Rs 18.59 crore), Jayashree Chemicals Ltd- Ganjam (Rs 4.5 crore) and Shree Metalicks Ltd- Barbil (Rs 33 lakh).

The state's revenue growth in the April-October period of this fiscal was tepid with a mere 2.76 per cent increase clocked in tax and non-tax segments.

Total revenue rose from Rs 12,694.75 crore to Rs 13,045.27 crore. Non-tax revenue, where mining is the single largest contributor, plummeted 16.77 per cent to Rs 3,582.11 crore by the end of October this year compared to Rs 4,303.77 crore posted in the year-ago period.