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Seven miners operating in Odisha are saddled with sales tax arrears of Rs 534 crore. With all cases being contested by the miners in different courts of law, the state government is struggling to recover the amount.
While the finance department had originally raised a demand totaling to Rs 549 crore by way of value added tax (VAT) and Odisha entry tax (OET) on these lessees, it has been able to recover barely Rs 15 crore.
The miners in the defaulters' list include Sarada Mines, Pattnaik Minerals Pvt Ltd, Mideast Integrated Steel Ltd, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), Apical Exim Pvt Ltd, Tata Steel Ltd and Reliance Minerals Ltd.
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According to a written note provided by the finance department to the state assembly, Sarada Mines tops the defaulters' list. The department has managed to collect only Rs 10 crore against a demand of Rs 397.12 crore raised on the lessee on its Thakurani mines in Keonjhar district. Similarly, the department has mopped up barely Rs 3 crore by way of OET against a demand of Rs 99.28 crore. In both the demand cases that were challenged by the lessee, the Odisha High Court has asked the state government not to take coercive action to collect tax arrears. The tax arrears range between April 1 2008 and March 31, 2011.
Sarada Mines is in dock for violation of Rule-37 of Mineral Concession Rules- 1960.
The lessee was selling the entire run-of-mine (ROM) produce from its Thakurani mines in Keonjhar district to Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) without any agreement. The notice was served on the lessee on the basis of a five-member panel of steel & mines department that had held the leaseholder guilty of the violation. Also, under pricing of the ore by the lessee contributed to lower VAT collection to the state government.
Mideast Integrated Steel was slapped a demand of Rs 18.31 crore for VAT and Rs 4.24 crore towards OET dues during the same assessment period as Sarada Mines. While collection from the steel company in VAT was a paltry Rs 1.22 crore, that under OET was still tinier at Rs 28.30 lakh.
On SAIL's Bolani iron ore mines in Sundargarh district, the state government has raised a total Central sales tax (CST) demand of Rs 21.52 crore from 2005-06 to March 31, 2010. Against this demand, collection has been only Rs 1.86 crore.
On Tata Steel's Joda mines, the government raised CST demand of Rs 1.83 crore out of which Rs 49.47 lakh has been collected.
