Don't violate terms of royalty slips: SRCA

Hyderabad: The State Mining Department and National Highways Authority should prevent irregularities in issuing the royalty slips, said Southern Regional Contractors Association (SRCA). The association, said: "The National Highways Authority India (NHAI) floats tenders for roads and bridges development projects at a global level. Companies taking up tenders have to provide royalty slips to NHAI for the gravel soil, Blue metals used in the infrastructure development projects."

The State Mining Department periodically checks the quality of gravel soil, blue metals while issuing royalty slips to the contractors.

For example, a royalty certificate of Rs 25 crore will be required to be submitted for a project costing Rs 500 crore. It has become a practice for some companies to issue a royalty certificate for around Rs 5 crore and get a fake royalty certificate for around Rs 20 crore in the name of the State Mining Department and submits the same to NHAI. Due to this, the government is losing crores of rupees of revenue.

At the national level, violations of regulations and loss of revenue to the government continue to occur through fake royalty certificates across various states. SRCA urges that the central and state governments should take action to prevent such illegal activities. At present, only 25 per cent of the royalty slips, submitted to NHAI are original, while the remaining 75 per cent of royalty slips are fake ones fabricated by the companies.

The state and central government law enforcement agencies should investigate the issue and initiate inquiries against those companies involved in this malpractice. The State Mining Department and National Highways Authority should monitor the process and prevent irregularities in royalty slips issues, pointed out SRCA Organizing Secretary Muthu Kumar.