Fall in Odisha's mining revenue hurts collection in April-June

Odisha's revenue collection has shown a downtrend in the April-June quarter of this fiscal, let down by depressing collection in segments like mining and land revenue.

The state's total non-tax revenue base where mining revenue is the biggest contributor shrank 19.88 per cent in the period to Rs 1,269.94 crore compared to Rs 1,585.10 crore in the corresponding period of last fiscal. The mining revenue fell by 22.33 per cent to Rs 1,002.35 crore from Rs 1,290.55 crore in the year-ago period. "This is a big disappointment. The tepid collection from this segment has hurt overall revenue growth," said a finance department official.

Mining revenue has suffered since 18 major iron ore and manganese mines are still off operations as per the Supreme Court (SC) order.

The apex court in an order related to illegal mining in Odisha in May this year, held that mine leases awaiting second and subsequent renewal cannot continue operation till the state government passes express orders allowing them to operate. The top court had given six months' time to the state government to take a final decision on renewal of mining leases. Complying with the SC order, the state government has passed orders to restart operations of eight mines, including four held by Tata Steel, three of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and one of state run Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), with a rider that they would furnish all necessary documents for lease renewal within three months.

However, the government is yet to pass similar express orders allowing the balance 18 mines to restart operation.

The state's own tax and non-tax revenue totalled to Rs 4,697.24 crore by the end of June. Though this is an achievement of 16.84 per cent of the Budget estimate (BE), the figure is a decline of 2.79 per cent over Rs 4,832.04 crore recorded by the end of June 2013. In the non-tax revenue base, there was a negative trend in case of revenue from major irrigation projects that plunged 51.48 per cent and revenue from education sector which dropped by 85.07 per cent. Even in the state's own tax revenue segment, collection grew by only a modest 5.56 per cent from Rs 3,246.94 crore to Rs 3,427.31 crore. Land revenue and stamps & registration decelerated by 19.86 per cent and 24.94 per cent respectively. Other taxes & duties consisting of forest development tax (FDT), entertainment tax and luxury tax fell 46.15 per cent while entry tax (levied on goods and passengers) rose by a meagre 2.5 per cent from Rs 338.20 crore to Rs 346.55 crore.

But areas like professional tax and motor vehicle tax bucked the trend, registering growth of 21.88 per cent and 24.49 per cent respectively.