Shillong, Apr 17: The state government and Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (JHADC) are losing out on crores of rupees through the understatement of loads carried by cement company trucks in Jaintia Hills, the Association of Meghalaya Traders and Transporters (AMTT) has claimed.
In a letter yesterday to the East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner, the AMTT said that cement companies use bulker trucks to transport cement and clinker in loose form, which “has created a systemic vulnerability to fiscal evasion.”
This is because the government does not have a way to verify the tonnage declared by the companies, the transporter body said, and this could impact GST collection, JHADC mineral cess, District Mineral Foundation (DMF) contributions, etc.
Short realisation of mineral royalties was something pointed out by the Comptroller and Auditor General in 2018 and the Directorate General of GST Intelligence had flagged cement manufacturers for maintaining an unaccounted supply of cement and clinker, the AMTT added.
The transporters had previously complained about the use of bulker trucks by the Jaintia Cement Manufacturers Association (JCMA), saying that these cause excessive damage to roads, pose a danger to other travellers and have disadvantaged local transporters who have invested in road-safe smaller trucks.
The JCMA has since replied that bulker trucks are used only for “bulk consumers” like RMC (ready mix concrete) plants and big projects and that such dispatch does not affect local truckers. However, the AMTT said that this is “false, misleading and an attempt to cover up systematic tax evasion and destruction of local livelihood.”
The lobby group said that until 2018 all East Jaintia Hills cement was moved in bags but now leave the district in loose form in bulker trucks. It also maintained that bulker trucks transport the vast majority of product, not just for big projects and RMC plants as the JCMA stated.
The AMTT also alleged that 90 percent of the bulker trucks from EJH proceed to warehouses in Assam and West Bengal where the loose cement is packaged with local labels in order to claim “manufacturing subsidies and evade GST”.
