The revenue growth of Delhi as projected by the Delhi Government has fallen down to 13 per cent against the budgetary projection of 33 per cent.
Officers said VAT collections have not drastically gone up despite the Government making steep increase on it on diesel and petrol in the city. The Government has been able to increase VAT collections by 10.81 per cent against its own target of 32 per cent till
August 31.
One of the primary reasons for the Government’s failure to keep pace with its VAT collection targets is the fact that the base price of both petrol and diesel had gone down in the past few months and as a result of which the VAT on these products too had been brought down. Now the Government has decided to introduce a new online form —Delhi Sugam-2 (DS2) with effect from September 15. This means all registered dealers of Delhi are required to file the details of invoices and goods receipt note in respect of goods purchased or received as stock transfer from outside Delhi.
The case with tax collections in the excise duty too has been short of 16 per cent against the target it had set in its 2015-16 financial budget. While the revenue raised through excise duty was Rs1,557 crore till August 31 in the previous financial year, the collections made this year in the corresponding period are to the tune of Rs1,273 crore. The Government, which had set the target of 38 per cent increase in revenue collections through excise duty, has been able to increase these collections only by 22 per cent so far.
Faced with the dismal revenue growth the Arvind Kejriwal Government is mulling to tax online traders to reduce the shortfall in revenue growth and introduced reward policy to tax evaders’.
While the Trade and Taxes department was able to raise Rs6899.36 crore till August 31 in the previous financial year while it has collected Rs7645.22 crore in the corresponding period this year.
The worried Arvind Kejriwal Government has come out with a plan to introduce a reward scheme for informers providing vital inputs to check and detect VAT evasion in the capital. It is felt necessary to have participation of informers who can provide specific inputs in the area of tax evasion to boost revenue.
The Delhi Government, which was able to collect Rs18,289 crore through VAT during the President’s Rule last year, has increased its target for the current financial year to Rs24,000 crore. Ditto had been case with the excise collections where the VAT department under the President’s Rule had raised Rs2,422 crore and the AAP government had increased this target to Rs4,100 crore.
The total revenue target set by the Arvind Kejriwal Government for the current financial year was Rs34,661 crore, which is almost Rs8,000 crore more than what the administration had collected in the previous year.
The transport department has been able to collect revenue of Rs660 crore till August 31. It had collected Rs616 crore during the last year during the same period.
It would be pertinent to mention that the Delhi Government has spent its 37.79 per cent of the non-plan fund in its first five months of the current financial year while it has spent only 17.37 per cent of its planned fund.
On the other hand, the money spent in the non- planned fund head is mostly used for salary, subsidies, contingencies programme and other miscellaneous activities of the Government and if the same trend continues the Government may be short of funds under this head.