The deficit also grew by 90 per cent during the year leading to the widening mismatch.

The government even could not recover its sales tax arrears of Rs 208.01 crore during the year. At the end of March 1999 out of 66,851 assessments pending finalisation no less than 41,053 related to taxes and immovable property. Test check of some of the departments such as commercial taxes, transport, land revenue, stamps and registration etc revealed that under assessment of the revenue amounting to Rs 582.49 crore had taken place in as many as 25,541 cases.

The revenue expenditure of the government during the course of the year shot up to 84 per cent from 76 per cent compared to the 62 per cent shares of the government receipts.

On the contrary the capital expenditure was lower from 22 per cent to 13 per cent. The revenue expenditure exceeded the revenue receipts resulting in a revenue deficit of Rs 2,996 crore, the report said. The copy of the report was tabled in the State vidhan sabha the other day.

The report said that the revenue expenditure acconted for 87 per cent of the total government expenditure as against 13 per cent in case of the capital expenditure.

The dividend and interest received by the government during the year amounted to Rs 8 crore on the total investments of Rs 2517.65 crore. The return was thus meagre at 0.32 per cent. The accumulated losses of the Corporations, government companies had risen to Rs 714.60 crore on the investments of Rs 1864.29 crore.

The five major and 12 medium irrigation projects having a capital expenditure of Rs 2351.24 crore gave a return of only 0.43 per cent not sufficient even to meet the working expenses. These irrigation schemes had suffered a net loss of Rs 299.99 crore.

At the end of March 1999 the State had a total of 407 incomplete projects in which Rs 2662 crore had been blocked.