Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday that the State has witnessed whopping growth of 21.60 percent in revenue collection, which is also highest in the country.
Sarma said this while addressing a press conference in Guwahati on Thursday and added that the revenue collection as well as the expenditure has gone down in the last few years of Congress regime in Assam, leading to poor fiscal health of the state.
“in 2014-15 revenue from taxation stood at Rs9449.81 crore. While this increased to Rs10,726 crore in 2015-16 our government had taken it to Rs12180 crore in 2016-17, making a quantum leap of over Rs2000 crore,” he said.
The Minister said that the BJP led Government took over the reins of power in Assam in May last year. “Revenue collection from non-tax sources was Rs2412.98 crore in 2014-15 and Rs2188.09 crore in 2015-16. Sarma said collection was all time high in 2016-17 and state received Rs3500 crore,” he said.
Sarma said that even in the expenditure front, Rs53,561 crore was released in 2016-17 in comparison to Rs39804 crore only in 2015-16.
He also said that the state government had also made some achievements in digital payment and that the state government has released Rs 43,000 crore in 2016-17 digitally. “This figure was Rs33,357 crore in 2015-16. Digitally state government received Rs8,343 in 2016-17 and Rs6,775 Crore in 2015-16,” the minister said.
“The momentum will be continued this year. With GST coming into force this year it will be different scenario. Revenue from excise department is likely to be hit following the Supreme Court banning the wine shops along the highways.
However we are hopeful that we will end the fiscal year registering growth of 19 to 20 percent.”
The finance minister said that state has been able to achieve fiscal prudence and robust growth without burdening the people of paying additional tax. “We have managed to plug the leakages and streamline the system and this has yielded dividend.”