SHILLONG: The Association of Meghalaya Traders and Transporters has alleged illegal transportation of coal and limestone to industrial areas in East Jaintia Hills.
In a letter addressed to Chief Minister Conrad Sangma recently, the Association said absence of revenue checkpoints or check gates en route to the cement factories to keep an eye on mineral-laden trucks is benefitting those factories.
Coal and limestone supplied by local suppliers to cement factories are not taxed and no accounts are kept by any government authorities. Besides, there is no concession on the cost of cement sold within Meghalaya and in fact, cement produced in Jaintia Hills is sold at a cheaper rate in Assam than what is sold in Khliehriat.
According to the association, the industrialists seldom visit East Jaintia Hills but are interested only in its natural wealth.
“A win-win policy is what is needed and the state government should not extend so much favouritism to cement industries in East Jaintia Hills,” the association said.
Royalty should be collected from minerals supplied to these factories and revenue check posts should be set up en route to the factories to check those trucks supplying raw materials to the factories, it added.
The state has already provided various subsidies to these factories and around 800 limestone-laden trucks and 130 coal-laden trucks are entering the cement industries daily. All these trucks are overloaded with almost three times the permissible weights, the association pointed out.
According to the association, if one has to calculate at 25MT of coal per truck per day, it will come to round about 1,186,250 MT of coal yearly. This means that the state and the central governments are losing taxes and royalty yearly from coal supplied to cement factories only in East Jaintia Hills district, it said.
Again if one has to calculate at 30MT of limestone per truck per day at 365 days a year it comes out to 8,760,000 MT annually.
Both the Centre and the state are losing taxes and royalty yearly from limestone supplied to cement factories in East Jaintia Hills.
“Such leaked income if properly tapped, the state will be able to construct at least 100 km of good roads every year in East Jaintia Hills,” the association said.
Suggestion to cut fuel cost
According to the association, tapping of revenue leakage from minerals supplied to cement industries will enable the government to cut tax on petrol and diesel.
“The government should also come up with a policy to protect local transporters. While giving various subsidies to the cement and other factories, proper agreement should be made so that preference is given to local transporters to transport products from various industries located across the state. As of now, transporters from Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and other states are preferred by cement factories in Jaintia Hills and local transporters are sidelined mostly,” the association said.
Moreover, there is absolutely too little employment opportunity for local people in all the cement factories, it added.
