The Uttar Pradesh government said that with the consistent increase in revenue, the government was funding welfare programmes for the poor and the downtrodden section of society.
In 2021-22, there was a 67 per cent increase in revenue due to which the government reduced value-added tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel.
The government said it had implemented a wide range of economic reforms for revenue growth while maintaining transparency backed by use of technology. With the consistent efforts of the government, more than 63,032 traders have registered under the goods and services tax (GST) as against the target of 35,000 in the first 100 days, which is almost double of the target.
Besides, Uttar Pradesh ranks first in the country in GST returns. Over 95 per cent of the traders have filed their returns till March 2021 in the state. As per the data of the Revenue Department, in the year 2017-2018, a revenue of Rs 58,738 crore was generated, which increased to Rs 98,107 crore in 2021-2022, reflecting an increase of around 67 per cent in the last five years.
The government registered a revenue increase of Rs 39,369 crore in the financial year 2021-2022 and the state government is spending much more from its treasury for the welfare of the poor in the financial year 2022-23 than in the past.
The government is also providing two free LPG cylinders in a year to the poor while a sum of more than Rs 15,000 crore is being spent on providing pensions to senior citizens, destitute and the differently-abled persons.
The government has made a provision of more than Rs 54,883 crore in the current fiscal 2022-23 budget to fulfill the 97 promises made in Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra of 2022.
In a bid to get more traders registered under GST, the Revenue Department conducted a massive registration awareness campaign from November 2021 to January 2022. Under this, 8,439 camps, 8,672 seminars and 721 mega seminars were organised and as many as 5,946 hoardings were put up. Under the campaign, over 54,682 new traders registered themselves. In the year 2021-22, about 2,99,480 new registrations were done.
From April 1 to July 22 of the current fiscal, more than 98,032 new traders registered themselves for GST. Now, the number of traders registered in the state is 18.15 lakh.
Over 14,067 traders benefitted from the interest and financial penalty waiver scheme run by the government and the government received Rs 115.16 crore. At the same time, from February 3 to September 2, 2021, 14,575 traders were benefitted under this scheme and a sum of Rs 130.28 crore was deposited in the government treasury. In two years, a sum of Rs 245.44 crore was received by the government as revenue.