With whopping Rs 4, 000 crore tax revenue being locked in various court cases for years, the State Government on Thursday decided to engage special legal counsels to help disposal of the cases.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who on Thursday reviewed the status of tax and non-tax revenue and the rate of collection at a high level meeting expressed concern over the non-collection of huge tax revenue due to court cases and asked Finance Minister Prasanna Acharya to take early steps to engage expert lawyers to plead the cases.
After the meeting, Chief Secretary BK Patnaik told news men that the Chief Minister had expressed satisfaction over the record growth in revenue collection during the 2012-13 fiscal. He said that while the revenue collection recorded growth of 15.37 per cent during financial year 2012-13, it is targeted to grow by 20 per cent during 2013-14 fiscal. Target for revenue collection for 2013-14 is pegged at Rs 26,350 crore, he said.
According to official sources, the revenue target for 2013-14 has been fixed at Rs 26, 350 crore with tax revenue of Rs 18,350 crore and non-tax revenue of Rs 8, 000 crore. It is targeted to collect Rs 11.500 crore revenue towards commercial tax, while Rs1, 900 crore has been proposed for collection as excise tax and Rs 1,100 core from Stamp duty and registration fee during the current financial year, it said.
The Chief Minister during the meeting advised the concerned departments to enhance their non-tax revenue by way of streamlining and ensuring qualitative delivery of services.
On the measures for additional resource mobilization, Patnaik asked to implement the reformative measures and augment revenue collection for sustaining higher plan outlay laid down for accelerating the growth.
During the review, it was revealed that the total tax and non-tax revenue collection in the State has recorded a growth of 15.37 per cent over 2011-12 with augmentation of around Rs 22,942 crore, of which tax revenue is around Rs 15,150 crore and non-tax revenue is around Rs 7,792 crore, he said.
The growth rate in tax revenue is 12.70 per cent and the growth rate in non-tax revenue is 20 per cent making a total of 15.37 per cent growth rate in revenue augmentation. During 2011-12 fiscal the total revenue augmentation was Rs 19,885 crore.
According to official sources, because of many reformative measures implemented by the Finance Department, the revenue augmentation in State has been recording a consistent growth over last 6 years since 2007-08 during which the total revenue collection was Rs 9,509 crore. While the major sources of tax revenue includes sectors like land revenue, stamps and registration, excise, sales tax, vehicle tax, entry tax, electricity duties, the major sources of non-tax revenue include mining royalty, forest and wild life, water rate, irrigation, industrial water rate, water supply and sanitation, interests and dividends and other departmental receipts, it said.
Finance Minister Prasanna Acharya, Chief Secretary BK Patnaik, Development Commissioner Jugual Kishore Mohapatra, Revenue Secretary Tara Dutta, Sales Tax Commissioner Manoj Ahuja and Excise Secretary and Transport Commissioner were present.