Serious lapses in tax collection and garbage management by the Local Government Department have been flagged in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.The report was tabled in the recently concluded Punjab Assembly session.The CAG flagged a shortfall in revenue collection, ranging between 7.31 per cent and 16.10 per cent, for the period between 2020 and 2023.It has also pointed out the “systemic collapse” in Punjab’s local governance regarding the solid waste management, as large volumes of garbage remain untreated.The urban local bodies have failed to collect over Rs 126.5 crore in user charges for waste management, it pointed out.The main components of the revenue include municipal tax, property tax, advertisement fee, trade licence fee, water and sewerage charges, regularisation fee for unauthorised colonies, building application fee and street vending fee. An audit of 75 urban local bodies was carried out to study the lapses in the revenue collection.It pointed out that large institutions like Punjab Agriculture University (PAU) and Peninsula Mall, Bathinda, evaded property tax of Rs 104 crore and Rs 101 crore, respectively.The respective urban local bodies failed to levy penal interest on the outstanding amount, resulting in further shortfall in revenue.The local bodies incurred wasteful expenditure of Rs 98 lakh on the survey of vendors and also failed to collect the vending fee.A sample check of the collection of external development charges (EDC) from 17 colonisers in Morinda, Banur and Zirakpur led to a loss of nearly Rs 26 lakh.The amount could be much higher, if the audit of the EDC collection from local bodies in Ludhiana, Mohali, Jalandhar and Amritsar was carried out.The CAG also found that the bodies were failing to recover the compounding fee levied for the regularisation of unauthorised colonies.Several local bodies also failed to generate revenue due to non-allocation of outdoor media sites.For the period 2017 to 2022, the CAG found that despite growing waste generation due to rapid urbanisation, systems for planning, processing and scientific disposal of municipal solid waste remained inadequate.In Punjab, the daily generation of solid waste during 2021-22 was 4,222 MT. Of this, 4,207 MT was collected, but only 35 per cent or 1,471 MT was treated, leaving about 65 per cent of waste untreated, indicating a significant gap in solid waste management across 166 urban local bodies in the state.Against a projected Rs 204.84 crore between April 2019 and March 2022, the select urban local bodies collected only Rs 1.06 crore as user charges, which was just 0.52 per cent of the target.