UP’s tax receipts in October up 21% year on year

The Uttar Pradesh government’s own tax revenue (OTR) has increased by an impressive 20.7% in October to Rs 10,673 crore.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the state’s OTR grew year on year for the third month in a row. But the collection is still behind the state’s monthly OTR target of Rs 12,287 crore for FY21.

While the growth has been driven by an increase in stamp and registration fees as well as GST and VAT collections, the state excise department has overshot its target by 107%.

According to the finance department’s revenue data for October, state excise duty collections grew to Rs 2,403 crore this year from Rs 1,861 crore in the same period last year, an increase of nearly 30%.

Revenue collection from stamp and registration fees was Rs 1,806 crore as against last year’s Rs 1,368 crore. This was 97% of the month’s target of Rs 1,860 crore.

Similarly, revenue from GST increased to Rs 3,795.44 crore from Rs 3,312.28 crore last year, reaching 77.8% of the target of Rs 4,877.64 crore.

VAT collections too, showed an increase from Rs 1504.44 crore last year to Rs 1802.83 crore, achieving 86.9% of the of Rs 2,073.88 crore.

This is the third consecutive month when the state has shown an increase in revenue collections. It had registered an increase of Rs 600 crore in August while in September, the collection had gone up by Rs 891 crore as compared to the corresponding period last year.

Expressing satisfaction over the revenue increase, an official of the finance department said though the economy is showing signs of recovery, it needs to be seen whether it sustains. “The real test would be in December and January. Only then can we get the real sense of recovery,” he said.