The collection of Central Sales Tax (CST) in Orissa dipped for the first time in October this year. The collection declined by 11.42 percent to Rs 43.12 crore last month compared with the corresponding figure of Rs 48.68 crore in the previous year.
This is attributed to the impact of slow down on the economic activities in the state, devastating flood in 19 coastal districts, liquidity crunch and the impact of the double digit inflation among others, official sources said.
It may be noted, despite reduction in the rate of CST to 2 percent from April 2008, the collections surged by 45.04 percent during the first 6 months of the fiscal.
The growth in CST collections turned negative in October after a marginal growth of 5.28 percent in September, 2008, official sources said.
However, the overall collection of CST in the first seven months between April and October was higher by 34.21 percent at Rs 340.76 crore compared to Rs 253.9 crore collected during Apr-Oct 2007.
Though the cumulative growth in collection of commercial taxes was 24.85 percent in the first seven months, the growth rate slipped to 15.97 percent in October this year.
The total collections of commercial taxes consisting of value added tax (VAT), CST, entry tax, professional tax, Orissa Entertainment Tax (OET), Orissa Land Tax (OLT) reached Rs 2833.24 crore compared to Rs 2269.24 crore in the previous fiscal.
This is about 47.5 percent of the budget estimates of Rs 5974.06 crore, sources added.
The Orissa Sales Tax (OST)/VAT collections surged by 26.75 percent to Rs 2103.99 crore compared to Rs 1660 crore in the previous year. The rate of growth, however, declined to 22.26 percent in October.
The rate of growth in collection of entry tax improved marginally in October to 10.34 percent compared to 8.71 percent during Apr-Oct. The collection of entry tax was Rs 343.93 crore by the end of October compared to Rs 316.38 crore in the previous year.
The growth in collection of professional tax declined to 7.73 percent (Rs 7.05 crore) in October compared to a growth of 15.29 percent (Rs 43.36 crore) during the first seven months of 2008-09.
Sources said, the collections of OET and OLT improved substantially during October this year compared to a negative growth of 14.54 percent during Apr-Oct.
Sources said, the OET and OLT collections in October were Rs 28.75 lakhs compared to Rs 21.87 lakh an year before. However, the cumulative collections at Rs 1.17 crore was 20.07 percent lower compared to Rs 1.38 crore collected in October 2007.
“The corporate sector contribution has not been impacted much but the performance of the trading sector was bad resulting in negative growth in CST”, an official of the state finance department said.
The collection performance of the Jajpur and the Keonjhar circles which recorded higher growth during the first six months of 2008-09, was not satisfactory with Jajpur circle recording a negative growth of 39 percent and collections in Keonjhar circle increasing marginally by 0.74 percent to Rs 2.2 crore. Dhenkanal, Sambalpur (II), Baragarh, Kalahandi circles were among the worst performers.
