New Delhi, Dec 28 (KNN) Expressing disappointment with the state government with regard to zero tolerance towards corruption in Punjab, President of Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association (FOPSIA), Badish Jindal wrote a letter to Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh alleging huge corruption in excise and taxation (SGST) department.

In the letter, he said “There is huge corruption in excise and taxation department and assesses are forced to pay 5% to 10% for getting their refunds released.”

He further added that units are forced to pay huge interest on amounts to the banks as their refunds are still pending in the department due to their demand of bribe.

For getting their refunds back, he said “Few of our members informed that they have paid from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 Lakh per unit.They are forced to pay because in case of denial to pay the bribe, the officers illegally delay their refunds for years and even try to deduct the amounts on account of various minor reasons.”

He strongly pointed that the delay in VAT refunds due to corruption is also becoming the reason for NPA for many Bicycle and Hosiery units in Punjab.

Raising an important point of rising bogus units in the state, Jindal said that many cases of refund payment to bogus units by officers has come into limelight but even after the intervention of the high court, the department took no action against such officers.

Even in our RTI information the department informed that no action taken against any officer for bogus refunds, he pointed.

Highlighting the issues of corruption in state, Jindal said “The other main corruption is in fixing the cases for scrutiny under section 29. The department denied to give any information regarding the data and number of cases under RTI. Whereas as per our information the department has fixed more than 1 lakh cases in security during last two years and as per CAG report 85151 cases were pending for scrutiny in Punjab.”

There is huge corruption in scrutiny as assesses are forced to pay 10000 rupees to 10 Lac rupees for getting their assessments. Many corrupt officers are earning millions of rupees on account of corruption in scrutiny.

He further pointed that officers are giving no data to head quarter for fixing the cases and in many cases the settlements are done by cancelling the notices.

“It was decided during the implementation of GST that the department will not fix the cases under scrutiny for the years after 2013-14. But unfortunately the officers are issuing the notices for these years for their vested interests”, Jindal said.

Even after making continuous requests to the concerned department for investigation in February 2018, the frauds of more than 1000 crores found by the department but as per our information in most of the cases the Bogus units settled their cases under the table and their burden of tax was shifted to the next dealers, Jindal added.

However, even after our confirmed information the department took no action against many units and those units are still running the bogus trading by paying a handsome monthly amount to the department.

Requesting the chief minister to take this issue seriously and unearth the refund scrutiny and GST scams quickly, Jindal suggested transfer of officers at the earliest.