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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 revenue and land revenue.
The state's total non-tax revenue base where mining revenue is the biggest contributor shrank 19.88% in the period to Rs 1,269.94 crore compared to Rs 1,585.10 crore in the corresponding period of last fiscal.
The fall was led by mining revenue that contracted 22.33% to Rs 1,002.35 crore from Rs 1,290.55 crore in the year-ago period.
"Fall in mining revenue has been a major disappointment. The tepid collection from this segment has hurt 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 could not continue operations till the state government passes express orders. The top court had allowed the state government six months time to complete this exercise.
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).
However, the government orders are pending in respect of the balance 18 mines.
The state's own tax and non-tax revenue totaled 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% over Rs 4,832.04 crore recorded by the end of June 2013.
In the non-tax revenue base, negative trend was witnessed in case of revenue from major irrigation that plunged 51.48% and also revenue from education sector which nosedived 85.07%.
Even in the state's own tax revenue base, collection grew by only a modest 5.56% from Rs 3,246.94 crore to Rs 3427.31 crore. Land revenue and stamps & registration decelerated by 19.86% and 24.94% respectively, slowing growth. Other taxes & duties consisting of forest development tax (FDT), entertainment tax and luxury tax fell 46.15% while entry tax (levied on goods and passengers) rose by a meagre 2.5% 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.
