BHUBANESWAR: The unprecedented slowdown of State economy due to Covid-19 pandemic and consequential lockdown of non-essential business activities from last week of March to third week of May has impacted the revenue collection in Odisha.
Collection of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the first quarter (April-June) of 2020-21 fiscal has registered a negative growth of 32.79 per cent (pc). The total collection in the three months was Rs 1,560.2 crore against Rs 2,321.39 crore collected during the corresponding period of 2019-20 fiscal. The GST collection of June was Rs 759.17 crore against Rs 804.49 crore collected during the same period of the last year.
Similarly, the Gross GST collection (CGST, IGST, SGST & cess) in the first quarter of the current fiscal is Rs 5,192.30 crore against Rs 8,019.44 crore during the preceding quarter of 2019-20 registering a negative growth rate of 35.25 pc. Though the June collection of Rs 2,693.75 crore saw a marked improvement over April and May, it fell short by 7.86 pc compared to the collection of Rs 2,923.47 crore achieved during last June.
The movement of vehicles, which is an important indicator of restoration of normalcy in business activity, is showing an encouraging trend, said Commissioner of Commercial Tax and GST S K Lohani. The average daily inter-state waybills generated in February was 22,104 which dipped to 3,356 during April but improved significantly to 16,817 during the last week of June.
Similarly, the average daily intra-state waybills generated during February was 24,734 which dipped to 8,517 in April. However, this improved to 23,577 (95 pc) during the last week of June showing a very healthy trend, he said. Lohani said the imposition of nationwide lockdown adversely affected timely filing of returns for the tax periods of February, March and April also. Relaxation given by the State Government has shown marked improvement in tax filing, he added.