Assam losing crores to extortionists at border: panel report

The report, which is with The Indian Express though the applicant is yet to get a copy, said, “On an average, the state government appears to be losing several hundred crores a year due to corruption at these two check gates. What is more surprising is the apparent silence and unwillingness on the part of senior officers of departments like Transport and the Commissioner of Taxes etc…to stop this,” the report said.

The one-man inquiry committee, headed by C.K. Das, a senior IAS officer of the rank of additional chief secretary, was set up following some newspaper reports and a discussion in the state assembly in September 2005. Das visited the Chagalia (Baxirhat) and Srirampur check gates on the Assam-West Bengal border on April 27 and 28, 2006, and submitted his 32-page report on April 7, 2007.

The report details how officials of several government and non-government groups are extorting money in the name of various taxes. The transport and sales tax departments are supposed to check the commercial vehicles at these posts.

While the official penalty rate is Rs 1,000 for every extra tonne of goods apart from the normal entry fee, every overloaded truck is forced to pay a flat rate Rs 1,400 to the officials. Page 23 of the report clearly says that while trucks are forced to pay huge sums when entering Assam, they have to pay only about Rs 80 when they enter West Bengal from, say, Bihar.

“Six-wheelers and 10-wheelers normally carry extra loads of 11 to 25 tonnes. In a day, on an average, 1,400 trucks cross Srirampur either way. If one pair of a six-wheel and a 10-wheel truck has to pay Rs 3,600 as fine, one can imagine how much the government should get every day as fines in this check gate,” the report said.

Apart from this rate at the gate, each truck is also required to make the following payments: Rs 400 to tax officials, Rs 200 to the Agriculture Marketing Board personnel, Rs 130 to the Excise department staff and Rs 20 to the forest department staff. The motor vehicle inspector (MVI) posted at the gate collects another amount of between Rs 300 and Rs 400 to finally allow a truck to pass through.

One check gate belongs to the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), an underground group that is currently in a ceasefire with the government. Every truck is bound to cough up Rs 400 at this gate. Within a few metres is another gate put up by the Adivasi Cobra Militants, another armed group. This group is smaller than the NDFB and so is the rate—Rs 100 a truck.

A few kilometres from the inter-state border, the Simautapu police outpost has engaged some local toughs to collect between Rs 150 and Rs 250 a truck. On the toll gate at Bir Chilarai bridge in Dhubri district, each truck has to pay up to Rs 200 against a government rate of Rs 10 to Rs 20. This is followed by a series of collection points along the national highway. And then there is one gate where some local boys collect Rs 100 a truck in the name of pollution check.

“There are some unauthorised private counters on both sides of the road (at Chagalia). The owners of these counters mostly collect the papers and money from the truck drivers and act as middlemen between truck drivers and the check posts,” the report said.

The most interesting extortion however is by the Assam State Agriculture Marketing Board (ASAMB), a board under the state agriculture department, which has declared the entire district of Kokrajhar as a market. There is no market at Srirampur, and thus the Board has no business to set up check gates here.