The Delhi Government’s revenue estimates for the current year are at least 20-30 per cent short of its Budget estimate. The shortfalls are in all the key areas — stamp duty, property registration fee, Value Added Tax and excise, which implies manufacturing services and real estate are badly hit.
Reports suggested that the the Government was able to collect only Rs 20,061 crore taxes till November. That means Government will have to raise about Rs 12,000 crore till March 31 next year to match up with its revised estimates.
Financially, the Government will be hard pressed to pursue its welfare promises — free Wifi, free education, free healthcare — or facilities, said sources.
Though the maximum tax collections are raised from January to March every year, there is fear among bureaucrats that this year it may show a steep decline due to post-demonetisation impact on manufacturing services and real estate.
“The way trade sector has been affected after demonetisation, there are chances that we may be short of about 15 per cent of our revenue collections in the current financial year,” said a senior bureaucrat, adding that revenue figures of January will show the impact of demonetisation on Capital’s financial health.
Reports showed that the collections raised through stamp duty and registration fees, including land revenue, stand at Rs 2244.85 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 3,625 crore. The growth rate is 5.56 per cent. Despite the fact that demonetisation had hardly any impact on the sale of liquor, the excise collections stood at Rs 2631,20 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 4,700 crore.
The VAT collections — which form a major share of the Government’s revenue — have logged at Rs 13,554.87 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 22,000 crore. Even taxes raised through sale of vehicles havebeen as low as Rs 1,123.01 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 1,750 crore.
Even the entertainment tax has taken a hit and accounted for mere Rs 183.32 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 300 crore. The Government mopped up Rs 298.01 crore through luxury tax against the revised estimate of Rs 550 crore. The only source of revenue where collections have been more than the revised estimate was through betting tax. The Government got Rs 25.97 crore through betting tax against the revised estimate of Rs 25 crore.
The Government had put a Budget estimate of Rs 36,525 crore for tax collections for 2016-17. After that it reduced the tax collection target to Rs 32,950 crore in revised estimate on November 23.