Imphal: The Rural Engineering Department in Manipur is sitting on a pile of cash. Audit reports show the agency failed to deposit 2.15 crore in Value Added Tax into the state government account. This money belongs in the treasury.
The cash came from 95 separate contractor bills. These payments covered 34 ongoing rural road projects worth 38.53 crore. Project Implementation Units under the Manipur State Rural Road Development Agency withheld a 5.6 percent tax from every payment. They never sent it to the state. Instead, the Empowered Officer for the agency held the tax revenue in a bank account. Nobody explained why.
Audit findings for the year ending March 31, 2023, highlight this failure. Previous checks covering April 2017 to March 2020 revealed a larger discrepancy of over 6.43 crore in withheld taxes. The discrepancy between these figures leaves experts questioning if the remaining money was ever sent to the state. Officials remain silent.
The department provided no justification for the missing funds. This keeps vital cash away from public services. These taxes are supposed to fund infrastructure, healthcare, education, and salaries. As of the filing of this report, the funds remain outside the treasury. The audit states: "The deducted VAT had not been deposited into the State Government Account up to the date of audit."
Withholding this revenue creates a mess for financial transparency. State rules demand immediate remittance of collected taxes. The department continues to ignore this requirement. The money stays in their private account while state programs starve for budget.
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