Odisha yet to recover Rs 1,928 cr water cess from industries

Of the total outstanding amount, pending water cess worth Rs 1,089.29 cr are yet to be decided by the courts

Industries in Odisha owe Rs 1,928.34 crore to the government by way of water cess. With cases being still sub judice in different courts of law, the government has been unable to recover the arrears.

The industrial houses saddled with arrears are Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Ltd (IMFA), Tata Steel, Paradeep Phosphates Ltd (PPL), Essar Steel Ltd, Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), Paradeep Port Trust )PPT), Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and National Aluminium Company (Nalco) to name a few.

Of the total outstanding amount, pending water cess worth Rs 1,089.29 crore are yet to be decided by the courts.

Industries whose cases are pending in Odisha High Court and other courts of law are Tata Steel, Joda (Rs 48.60 crore), Ballarpur Industries, Jeypore (Rs 217.63 crore), Nalco, Angul (Rs 342.77 crore), Nalco, Damanjodi (Rs 76.01 crore), SAIL-Rourkela (Rs 69.59 crore), Tata Refractories Ltd (Rs 19.53 crore), Emami Paper Mills (Rs 14.05 crore) and Aarti Steel (Rs 18.11 crore).

Others with backlog in water cess included Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL), Orient Paper Mills-Brajrajnagar, Viraj Steel & Energy Ltd, Ind-Barath Energy Ltd, KVK Nilachal Power Ltd, Rohi Ferro Tech Ltd, SMC Power Generation Ltd, Shyam DRI Power Ltd, Hindalco Industires Ltd, Visaka Industries Ltd, Action Ispat Power Ltd, OCL India Ltd and Rungta Sons Ltd.

To expedite recovery of water cess arrears, the state government has constituted a squad chaired by the chief minister Naveen Patnaik and necessary instructions are being given to the industries to pay off the dues.

Besides, a committee has also been formed under the chairmanship of the state chief secretary to hasten recovery of long pending dues.