Audit Reports
Commercial
Report No. 27 of 2015 - Performance Audit on Land Management in Major Ports, Union Government, Ministry of Shipping
Overview
A performance audit was conducted to assess the extent of clarity in the policy guidelines for land management in major ports and whether these were consistently and uniformly applied across the ports. The manner of implementation of the guidelines was also test checked across ports.
Though the guidelines issued in 1995 were reviewed and revised policies were issued in 2004, 2010 and 2014, the revisions were restricted to certain issues only. There was ambiguity and absence of clear direction to the ports including in the guidelines of 2014.(Para 2.1)
Out of the total land holdings of 77191.14 acres, title deeds were not available for 34943.41 acres representing 45.27 per cent of total land holdings. Further examination also revealed that six ports did not have title deeds for their entire land holdings of 28816.08 acres, while other seven ports possessed title deeds only for partial land under their possession. (Para 3.1.4.1)
Paradip Port Trust (PPT) did not take necessary steps to complete mutation process to obtain title deeds for 186.81 acres of land which stood recorded in favour of old tenants. (Para 3.1.3.1 (ii))
Discrepancies between land holdings as per records maintained at ports and state revenue authorities concerned were noticed. Similarly, discrepancy was also noticed in records maintained by different departments of ports. (Para 3.1.4.2)
Records maintained by the ports were not accurate and updated to reflect the real position of encroachment, and port managements did not take action to remove encroachments and repossess land under their custody. Audit examination revealed encroachment of land admeasuring 396.44 acres of land in nine out of 12 ports, whereas the ports had reported 273.98 acres of encroached land.(Para 3.2)
Though the matter was taken up with the Ministry for approval for extending the lease period beyond 30 years, ports were not successful in obtaining the approval, which, in turn, indicated that the follow-up mechanism in ports was either not effective or the same was not available. In five ports, 42 cases were noticed where delay in according approval for renewal of leases ranged from one to 31 years. (Para 3.3.1)