Government accommodations: Licence fee not revised, Chandigarh lost Rs 12 cr in 12 years: Audit

The UT Administration has suffered a loss of nearly Rs 12.33 crore due to non-revision of licence fee of the government accommodations in the city from the year 2012 to 2023. The observation was made by the Director General of Audit (Central) in its report.

The licence fee has to be revised every three years, but the UT Administration has been recovering it at the rates revised in January 2009. The fee was last revised in July this year. The Central Government on an average increases the licence fee from 18 to 20% ever three years.

Loss of revenue due to vacant houses

• During checking of record, it was noticed that 416 houses were vacant as on March 31, 2023. The period of non-allotment and vacancy in respect of certain houses was long, and reasons thereof were not clear. Besides, 36 houses were under maintenance and could not be allotted. The non-allotment of these houses also caused a loss of revenue in the form of licence fee.

According to the report obtained by RTI activist RK Garg, the audit of the House Allotment Committee was conducted for the year 2018-19 to 2022-23.

It was observed that the UT Administration had neither framed any policy for the revision of licence fee nor followed the Central Government pattern for revision of fee. Had the UT Administration revised the rates on the pattern of Central Government, it could have yielded an additional revenue of Rs 12.33 crore.

The audit reports that the loss on account of under-recovery of licence fee from January 2012 to September 2023 is calculated on the average 11,920 occupied houses as on October 10, 2023.

No regular surveys, inspections

During checking of records of the UT Allotment Committee, it was noticed that no survey/inspection was conducted from the year 2019-20 to 2022-23. In its reply, the committee stated that survey/inspection was carried out during 2018-19, but no such report was furnished to the audit department.

For the lack of survey or inspection of government houses, violation of subletting of residence, erection of any unauthorised structure, use of residence or any portion thereof for any purpose other than that for which it is meant or tampering with the electricity or water connections, etc, by the allottees could not be ruled out, stated the audit report.

“The House Allotment Committee maintains the largest number of government houses. The audit report points towards the need to manage this committee as per rules and orders issued by the Centre as well as the UT Administration,” said RK Garg.

After nearly 15 years, the UT Administration had in July revised the licence fee by upto 50% for various categories of the government houses. The fee is applicable to all allottees of the government houses of the UT Administration, governments of Punjab, Haryana, and officials on deputation in Chandigarh. As per the notification issued in July this year, the licence fee will increase by 5% every year from the next year.

Irregular out-of-turn allotment

During checking of records of the UT House Allotment Committee, it was noticed that 42 units during 2018-19, 74 during 2021-22 and 74 during 2022-23 were allotted out of turn in public interest/functional requirement. The details of houses allotted in public interest/functional requirement during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 were not furnished.