Over Rs 2.18-lakh cr cess collected by govt remains unutilised: CAG report

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Over Rs 2.18 lakh crore collected by the central government as cess for specific purposes such as education, sanitation and infrastructure have either not been fully transferred to dedicated funds or remain unutilised, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report.

The cess, an additional tax levied by the government, is collected by the central government under the Consolidated Fund of India (CFI). The collected fund is then transferred to the respective funds under different ministries, who utilise the funds for the specified purposes.

In FY18, the government collected Rs 2,14,050 crore under 42 cess categories.

The issue of short-transfer and under-utilisation of cess collected in the CFI for their dedicated accounts has been a recurring problem for many years, CAG said.

The report mentions the amount of fund that has been collected under various cess since its inception, but have not been fully transferred to dedicated funds. There was a short transfer of Rs 4,891 crore collected as Swachh Bharat cess to the Rashtriya Swacchata Kosh since FY16, the year the cess was introduced. In the case of road cess, the short transfer is Rs 72,726 crore since FY11. The short transfer amounts to Rs 44,505 crore in the case of clean energy cess.

"Comments on short transfer of funds with respect to road cess and clean energy cess have been repeatedly pointed out since 2010-11. However, accounting authorities have taken no action in this regard," the CAG report said.

In some cases, the ministries under-utilised the funds. The Technology Development Board (TDB) has utilised just 9.6 percent (Rs 779 crore) of the funds collected under the Research and Development (R&D) Cess since FY97. The rest of the fund, Rs 7,298 crore remain unutilised.

After the rollout of goods and service tax (GST) on July 1, 2017, a number of cess such as Krishi Kalyan Cess, Swachh Bharat Cess, Clean Energy Cess and Cess on Tea, Sugar and Jute were subsumed under the new tax regime. However, six cess continue to be levied. These are Primary Education Cess, Secondary Education Cess, Education Cess on Imported Goods, Cess on Crude Petroleum Oil, Road Cess, NCCD on Tobacco and Tobacco Products and Crude Petroleum Oil.