Focus on technology to earn more: Andhra CM Jagan to officials

VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has emphasised the need for adopting best practices in the revenue-earning departments so as to enhance their performance and at the same time to ensure provision of timely and better services to taxpayers.

At a review meeting on Friday, the Chief Minister took stock of the performance of various revenue-earning departments in the last fiscal. He directed officials to pay special attention to introducing the state-of-the-art technology in policy implementation in revenue generating departments to improve their efficiency and render improvised services to taxpayers. Modern technology will help reduce human involvement in the implementation of policies. The officials should conduct a study on using technology and submit a detailed report on it in the next meeting, he said.

The contact phone numbers of officials should be displayed prominently at all mandal, town planning, stamps and registration offices, village and ward secretariats to extend all civic services to the people in a transparent manner. The ACB should be swift in responding to complaints from taxpayers, he suggested.

Jagan also asked the officials to take special measures to curb the use and distribution of drugs among the youth by displaying awareness hoardings with toll free numbers at colleges and universities. Special programmes, including mock drills, to prevent drug abuse should be implemented at least twice in a month, he said.

The officials informed him that compared to 2021-22, the performance of the commercial taxes department was better last fiscal. It had achieved 93.24% revenue target by collecting Rs 51,481 crore taxes in the last fiscal. The revenue target for 2023-24 has been fixed at Rs 60,191 crore.

The revenue earned by the Stamps and Registration Department had gone up to Rs 8,071 crore in 2022-23 from Rs 4,725 crore in 2018-19. The Mines and Geology Department had earned a revenue of Rs 4,756 crore in 2022-23, exceeding the target of Rs 4,500 crore, besides registering a growth of 26% compared to previous fiscal.

The transport department had earned a revenue of Rs 4,294.12 crore in 2022-23 by achieving 95.42% target in 2022-23. The revenue target for the current fiscal has been set at Rs 6,999.42 crore, the officials informed.

The liquor consumption in the State had decreased by 12.61% in 2022-23. The sale of liquor, which stood at 384.3 lakh cases in 2018-19, declined to 335.9 lakh cases in last fiscal.