Bhubaneswar: The state government, Friday, informed the Assembly that water tax dues running in crores are pending on several industries of the state leading to huge financial drain on the state exchequer.
The reply came after BJD leader Prafulla Samal raised the issue in the House through an unstarred question. Samal sought to know about the dues pending in terms of water tax on evasive industries.
Water Resource Minister Raghunandan Das submitted a written reply to the query. The minister said that the state has now a total of Rs 3,936 crore water tax dues pending on 627 erring industries spread across the state.
As per the statement of the minister, while the list of defaulters include several big and small private players, it also has a number of government departments too which have failed in payment of the water tax. The government said that the data was upto March 31, 2020.
The minister also said that several cases against the water tax bills have also been filed in the courts. Some of the big defaulters in the list included-private miners and mining ancillary units, state Health department, Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha (IDCO), liquor shops and construction companies among others.
Some of the big industries whose names were mentioned in the list as water tax defaulters include Tata Steel (Joda), Essar Steel India (Keonjhar), East Coast Railway, Vedanta Aluminium, Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd and others.
The minister said that out of the `3,936 crore pending dues, lawsuits have been filed by the industries against the dues of `3,075 crore. The minister also said that no company has asked for waiver citing bankruptcy.
