LDA suffers a loss of Rs 30.88 crore: CAG

Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) suffered a loss of Rs 30.88 crore by initiating land acquisition proceedings for deposit works of state government without ensuring availability of funds, shows a latest CAG report. It said the LDA suffered a loss of Rs 30.16 crore due to short/non-recovery of fee/charges such as Floor Area Ratio (FAR fee, Purchasable FAR fee, City Development Charges, External Development Charges, Land Use Conversion Charges and Stacking and Supervision charges in accordance with Building Bye-laws and state government orders. The report for the year ended March 31, 2015, which was tabled in the state Assembly, said the LDA failed to put in place a mechanism to assess and collect labour cess on the estimated cost of construction of buildings/houses (wherever the estimated cost exceeded Rs 10 lakh) which led to non- collection of labour cess amounting to Rs 35.22 crore. It also said the LDA awarded the work of construction of Group Housing Schemes in contravention to the Central Vigilance Commission guidelines and incurred avoidable expenditure of Rs 18.28 crore. Application of incorrect rate of land in costing of flats resulted in loss of Rs 28.59 crore to the LDA, it said. The report also said the LDA failed to prepare the Zonal Development Plans for all the 22 zones of Lucknow area even after lapse of 10 years from the approval of Master Plan-2021 in March 2005. Besides, the authority in contravention to the state government policy of 1992, allotted more than one property to 167 applicants. It also failed to cancel the allotment of properties and recover the equivalent value of properties from these allottees amounting to Rs 24.41 crore, the report. Source: PTI