Severely hit by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, Himachal Pradesh’s economy has started showing signs of recovery if revenue collection receipts are an indication apart from the huge influx of tourists at the end of 2020.
The state has registered a notable growth of 25 per cent in its revenue receipts during December 2020 as compared to collections in the previous year during the same month.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said total revenue receipts during the month of December 2020 is around Rs 772 crore against Rs 619 crore during the same period last year.
These collections are under all head of the excise and taxation – which happens to be the key department engaged in revenue collections in the state.
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In fact, there is a positive trend recorded during the past four months beginning from the unlock period during August 2020, which is quite an encouraging feature for the state largely dependent on VAT, GST, excise revenue besides other taxes realised under different heads, including tourism and transport sectors, besides sale of surplus power.
“The revenue receipts of the excise and taxation grew at 15 per cent in August 2020, dropped slightly to 10 per cent in September 2020 but picked up to 37 per cent in October 2020 and nine per cent in November 2020. This month it is 25 per cent” said Thakur.
The chief minister said a significant increase of 45 per cent in revenue receipts of VAT, 29 per cent in revenue receipts of excise and 16 per cent in revenue receipts of the state GST have been registered in December 2020.
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This is primarily because of the revival of economic activities, state government’s unlock strategy, better compliance by taxpayers and better administration by the department.
“It is important to mention that despite the Covid-19 effects, the gap between cumulative revenue of current financial year and the previous financial year was down to seven per cent in December 2020 from 39 per cent in July 2020,” he said.
Further, some new initiatives of monitoring field units through performance cards have created a healthy competitive work environment across the field authorities where each authority drives motivation to make strenuous efforts to beat the assigned targets. This also has contributed significantly in augmentation of state revenue receipts. The efforts of the field units have further been strengthened with the enhanced analytical and data-driven intelligence-based capabilities at the headquarter level.
The chief minister said that major focus areas have been identified for augmenting the state revenue receipts like recoveries under legacy cases resolution scheme, physical verifications of e-way bills, compliance of GSTR3B return fillings, recovery of interest for late filing of returns, recovery of ineligible ITCs and recovery of tax deficits/mismatches etc.
Under HP legacy cases resolution 2019, aimed to recover disputed arrears from the firms, the department has recovered Rs 27.85 crore from a firm based at Parwanoo in Solan district and Rs 9.62 crore from a Sirmour-based firm making a total sum of Rs 71.69 crore recovered only during past the two to three months, said excise and taxation commissioner Rohan Chand Thakur.
