State GST Collection In Odisha Records 13% Growth Rate In July ‘20

Bhubaneswar : Despite intermittent lockdown and sub-optimal functioning of many of the sectors in the economy due to the ongoing COVID pandemic, state has witnessed positive growth rate of State GST collection for the first time during the current financial year in the month of July ’2020. The collection of State GST (OGST) in July 2020 increased to Rs. 794.02 Cr as against Rs. 702.44 Cr made during the corresponding month last year (July’19), registering a growth rate of 13.04%.
This is in the backdrop of poor performance during the first quarter of 2020-21 which was due to unprecedented lockdown of the state economy during the month of April – May 2020. The growth rate of Odisha GST for April 20, May 20 and June 20 was -61.15%, -25.22% & -5.83% respectively during the corresponding period last year (2019). This turnaround of positive growth rate in July’20 is primarily due to regular persuation & facilitation by the field officers, continuous monitoring and hand holding supported by data analytics by the Commissionerate of CT & GST as well as better performance in the mining sector.
In the meantime, the return filing position of the State assigned taxpayers for February 20, March 20, April 20 and May 20 has become 92.31%, 81.99%, 74.72% and 60.03% respectively in comparison to 76.24%, 79.67%, 77.66% and 79.88% during the corresponding period of last year. Taxpayers have been advised to fulfill their tax compliance liabilities within the prescribed due date.
Another indicator of growth of business of state economy is movement of goods, both interstate & intrastate, with utilization of waybills. As revealed from database, the daily average figures for interstate & intrastate way bill utilization for the first week of March 2020 (prior to lockdown) was 20790 & 24907 respectively. The corresponding figures came down to 1559 & 5671 respectively in the first week of April 2020 (peak of lockdown) before recovering to 16598 & 20893 respectively during the last week of July 2020 which is in the range of 81-83% of the pre-lockdown level.
The collection from one of the non-GST items – petroleum products, is also showing encouraging trend during July. The collection of July 2020 against this item increased to Rs. 521.47 Cr. from Rs. 509.03 Cr. collected in July 2019 registering a growth rate of 2.5%.
However, in view of setback in the economy due to COVID, particularly in the first quarter of 2020-21, the gross GST collection (i.e. OGST+IGST+CGST+Cess) till the end of July is Rs. 7540 Cr. with a negative growth rate of 28% while the cumulative Odisha GST collection till July 2020 is Rs 2354 Cr. with a negative growth rate of 22%. The trend though has now been reversed with the encouraging results in July 2020, efforts are being made to continue this trend and also recover the shortfall of the first quarter as much as possible in the remaining period of the financial year.
Commissioner Commercial Tax & GST, Shri S. K. Lohani, IAS during the recent review with the field officers have advised them to maintain this momentum by focussing on collection of arrear revenue under various heads of the pre GST regime as well as ensuring compliance by the GST tax payers by filing correct and timely returns. They have also been advised to expedite scrutiny of past returns of taxpayers and identify incidences of tax suppression by them so that the tax due to the Government could be collected. Potential sources of revenue leakages should be plugged with special focus on detection of tax frauds. He has further advised all the tax officers to complete all the adjudications in time and dispose off appeal and revision cases promptly to facilitate revenue collection.