After six months of steady rise in income collections, the Uttar Pradesh government has hit a speed-breaker, with its personal income collection going down to Rs 2,018 crore on year in February.
According to the finance division information accessed by FE, the state collected a total income of Rs 11,291.78 crore in February 2021, a drop of almost 15% from Rs 13,309.92 crore collected a year ago. Against the target of Rs 13,775.72 crore set for the month, the state has been in a position to gather 82% of the income.
The dip is primarily due to the sharp decline in excise collections. While the collections in February 2020 stood at Rs 4,260.89 crore, it came down to Rs 2,152.75 crore in February 2021, a dip of Rs 2,108.14 crore. The target for the month was Rs 3,560 crore.
Apart from excise, the GST collection, also, saw a decline of Rs 334.09 crore – from Rs 4,981.12 crore to Rs 4,647.03 crore, though the transport income registered a dip of Rs 99.80 crore, from Rs 654.38 crore final year to Rs 554.58 crore.
However, VAT, stamp and registration and mining have posted a development. While VAT collection has gone up by Rs 244.41 crore, stamp and registration went up by Rs 262 crore.
Speaking to FE, a state government official stated that the collections had primarily gone down only in excise and the cause for that is that though every single year the licence renewal for liquor vends is accomplished in February, this year it was accomplished in January. “Renewal of liquor licences fetches about Rs 2,000 crore every year. Since it was done in January this year, revenue collections for that month had shot up by Rs 2,796 crore over last year, mainly because of a surge in excise collection,” he stated, adding that this is the initially time in the previous six months that the income receipts have shown a downtrend trend.
He, nonetheless, expressed self-confidence that the receipts in March would be improved that final year’s overall performance as the lockdown had marred collections in the final 15 days of the earlier year. “We hope to see better collections in March this year, and though the year’s collections will fall short of the target due to the pandemic and the resultant lockdown, we have done better than many states,” he stated.