SGST collection stands at Rs 794 crore in July

BHUBANESWAR:  Odisha has witnessed positive growth in collection of State GST (SGST) for the first time during the current fiscal amid Covid-19. After the first quarter slump, the collection of SGST in July was Rs 794.02 crore against Rs 702.44 crore during the corresponding month last year, registering a growth rate of 13.04 per cent.

The collection for April, May and June was -61.15 pc, -25.22 pc and -5.83 pc respectively as compared to the corresponding months in 2019. Similarly, the return filing position of the State-assigned taxpayers for February, March, April and May has achieved 92.31 pc, 81.99 pc, 74.72 pc and 60.03 pc respectively in comparison to 76.24 pc, 79.67 pc, 77.66 pc and 79.88 pc during the corresponding period of last year.

Commercial Tax and GST Commissioner SK Lohani said the turnaround was primarily due to regular persuasion and facilitation by the field officers, continuous monitoring and support by data analytics as well as better performance in mining sector. “Taxpayers have been advised to fulfil their tax compliance liabilities within the prescribed due date. Another indicator of growth of business is movement of goods, both interstate and intrastate with utilisation of waybills,” he said.

The daily average figures for interstate and intrastate waybill utilisation for the first week of March (prior to lockdown) was 20,790 and 24,907 respectively. The corresponding figures came down to 1559 and 5671 respectively in the first week of April before recovering to 16,598 and 20,893 during the last week of July which is in the range of 81-83 pc of the pre-lockdown level. However, the gross GST collection till July-end was Rs 7,540 crore with a negative growth rate of 28 pc while the cumulative GST collection till July was Rs 2,354 crore.