UP’s August revenue surpasses year-ago level on liquor sales

Giving details of the state’s revenue collections, state finance minister Suresh Khanna said the state is gradually recovering from the losses caused by the lockdown. (Representative image)

While many states are still grappling with below par revenues, Uttar Pradesh has crossed its last year’s revenue collections in August. The state has collected Rs 9,545.21 crore in August this year `against Rs 8,942.76 crore a year ago. However, it is still way behind its targets. Against its budgeted monthly revenue target (tax and non-tax) of Rs 12,468.79 crore for August, it has achieved 76.6%. This is against the 68% collection in July, 61% in June, 41% in May and just 15% in April.

The state government’s decision to resume sale of liquor since May 4, when the third phase of the lockdown was imposed, has actually pulled up the state’s revenue collections in a big way.

The state’s excise department has registered a collection of Rs 2,310.77 crore in August against Rs 1,882.33 crore collected a year ago. Against its target of collecting Rs 2,490 crore in August, the department has collected Rs 2,310.27 crore, which is 92.8%.

Giving details of the state’s revenue collections, state finance minister Suresh Khanna said the state is gradually recovering from the losses caused by the lockdown. “The state’s economy is fast returning to normal as we have witnessed a marginal rise of 6.7% in the collection of revenue in August this year compared to the year-ago level. We have collected Rs 600 crore more revenue in August this year compared to the year-ago period,” he said.

“Due to the Covid-19 lockdown, there was a significant decline in the state’s revenue in April, May and June. But economic activities started gaining momentum from July. And, in August, the state collected about Rs 600 crore more revenue than the same month (August) last year,” he said, adding that it proves that the economic activities of the state are on the rise.

The GST/VAT revenue a year ago was Rs 5,126.56 crore, which increased to Rs 5,329.58 crore in August this year. Similarly, revenue from stamps & registrations also showed an uptick – Rs 171.53 crore against Rs 109.56 crore a year ago.

To further reap the benefits from excise, the state government has now decided to open bars in the state and also allowed the sale of imported foreign liquor, Indian scotch and all premium brands of brandy, gin, wine, vodka and rum from shopping malls through premium retail vends. It has, in fact, cleared the first four licences for Agra and Lucknow while six other applications are in different stages of clearance.