Madikeri: The Department of Small Savings and Lotteries has instructed the small savings wing here to renew the licences of agents who are collecting savings amounts exceeding Rs. 30 lakhs. This supersedes the January 17, 2006 Government Order which asked the department not to renew licences of agents who collected savings exceeding Rs. 30 lakhs.

Accordingly, the Small Savings Department will renew licences of the agents working under the Standard Agency System (SAS), Mahila Pradhan Kshetriya Bachat Yojana (MPKBY) and the Public Provident Fund (PPF) schemes, K. Siddappa, Assistant Director of the Department of Small Savings, told The Hindu on Friday.

The State Government, in its order on November 25, 2005, asked the Department here not to renew licences of any agent. It passed another order on January 17 asking the Department to renew licences of agents who mobilised collections less than Rs. 30 lakhs.

According to sources, Rs. 4,600 crores was mobilised in the State in 2004-05 as net collection under small savings. The amount will be made over to the Centre, which, in turn, will re-allot the same amount to the State as loan at 14 per cent interest.

There are 794 small savings agents in the district, of whom only 260 are active. As many as 175 work under the SAS, 616 under the MPKBY and three under the PPF scheme.

Collections

The Government has not fixed any target for small savings in the State for the financial year. Districts have been keeping previous year's target as the base for effecting collections this year. Kodagu's gross target in the previous year was Rs. 69 crores and the net target was Rs. 23 crores.

Collections under small savings this financial year (till February-end) were Rs. 56 crores under the gross savings and Rs. 20.63 crores under net savings. With the figures of March yet to come in, Kodagu is bound to cross the previous year's target, Mr. Siddappa said.

Kodagu stood 19th in terms of small saving collections in the State. Bijapur district stood first (as on February 2005), followed by Bellary and Bagalkot districts. Chamrajanagar stood last.

Flying squad

The State Government has constituted flying squads to check fake lottery ticket sale and "matka." The Deputy Commissioner will be the chairman of the squad with the Assistant Director of Small Savings, Inspector of Police concerned and Commercial Tax officer as its members, according to sources.

The squad will determine whether the lottery business in the State pertaining to other State lotteries are functioning in a proper manner, whether betting tax had been paid and lottery agencies have registered themselves with the Commercial Tax Department.

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