By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Seldom if ever does a Congress ruled state take a lesson from one ruled by the BJP, much less one headed by a controversial chief minister like Narendra Modi who is allegedly responsible for the Godhra carnage of 2002 where Muslims bore the brunt of the worst communal riot.
But a group of legislators from Meghalaya have no problems with taking a page out of Modi’s book of governance. The Assembly Committee headed by Lahkmen Rymbui will be visiting Gujarat shortly to understand how the State has plugged the revenue leakage from integrated check gates.
“We will be going to Gujarat for an in-depth study of the integrated check gates maintenance systems which have helped Gujarat to plug in the huge revenue leakages. We are keen to know the technology used to man the integrated check gates,” a member of the Assembly Committee told reporters here on Friday.
Stating that they would like to understand the problems that the Gujarat government faced before the installation of the integrated check gates and the revenue leakages that occurred, the legislator said the Committee would like to know the best practices adopted by the State to plug revenue leakage with the installation of the check gates.
Replying to a query, a member of the Assembly Committee informed that they are likely to visit Gujarat before the upcoming Budget Session scheduled to begin from March 9.
“After the visit to Gujarat, we will compile our recommendations before finally submitting the report to the State Government,” he said. When asked if they would be able to complete the report before the budget session, a member of the Assembly Committee said that they have almost completed the report and it would not take much time to compile the recommendations.
It may be mentioned that Gujarat has set up integrated check posts on the state borders to check if vehicles passing through these borders have paid all the road taxes, are carry proper documents, and conform to the loading and dimensioning norms. The Regional Transport Offices (RTO) of Gujarat transport department manage these check-posts. Gujarat has set up 10 check posts positioned at the inter-state border.
Reportedly, the Gujarat government is collecting revenue from toll gates amounting to around 4 billion rupees annually, more than the collection made by Maharashtra from similar gates.
Meanwhile, the committee had a meeting on Friday and discussed the need to implement integrated check posts mainly to help plug the revenue leakages as well as to ensure uniform and unified system of tax collection in the state.
The Assembly Committee also summoned the officials of both the Taxation and Police department to clarify about the findings of the committee.
Earlier on Wednesday, the committee had summoned officials of both Transport and Mining and Geology department.
The opposition NCP in Meghalaya has been raising the issue of revenue leakage in the state and demanded implementation of integrated check gates on national highways after which the Congress-led government took a call on it.
Non-realisation of royalty and non-levy of tax are the two main factors which resulted in revenue leakage worth crores of rupees in Meghalaya.
An Assembly Committee headed by Congress MLA, Lahkmen Rymbui was constituted on March 25 last year to probe into the alleged illegal collection on NH-62, NH-40 and NH-44 in Meghalaya.
After spot inspections were conducted on these national highways, the members of the Assembly Committee are now compiling reports which will be submitted to the Assembly in the forthcoming budget session beginning from March 9 to 23.