With the industrial and economic activity showing signs of revival during the third quarter of the current fiscal, the Orissa government hopes to achieve the tax and non-tax revenue collection target set in the budget for 2009-10.
The optimism is based on the improved revenue collection and better efficiency in the collection of taxes, finance minister Parafulla Chandra Ghadai said.
Talking to the media after chairing a high level meeting with other departments, Ghadai said, the collections of own tax revenue of the state was Rs 5237 crore against the budget target of Rs 8199.89 crore.
This is 69.97 percent of the budget estimates (BE) for 2009-10.
Similarly, the collection of non-tax revenue was Rs 1425 crore against the budget estimates of Rs 2242 crore for the year.
However, with vigorous collections during the last quarter, which normally happens in every fiscal, the government would be able to achieve the collection target in the budget.
The collection of mining revenue during the first nine months of the current fiscal was 92.64 percent of the budget target.
The collections were Rs 1250 crore against the target of Rs 1350 crore set for the current fiscal, thanks to the introduction of the advalorem rate for mineral royalty.
The collection of excise was 72.6 percent of the budget target while the achievement was 67.58 percent of the target in case of collection of value added tax (VAT) and Central Sales Tax (CST).
The state finance minister, however, admitted that low expenditure of the budgeted amount continues to be an area of concern.
The plan expenditure of 25 departments of the government was less than 50 percent with the overall plan expenditure being 33 percent by the end of November 2009. On the other hand, the non-plan expenditure during this period was 44 percent of the annual outlay, he added.
