State tops country in per capita revenue collection under GST

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 2

Despite being a small state with barely 2 per cent of the geographical area of the country, Haryana has achieved number one position in the per capita collection of the revenue in the first financial year of the GST regime, leaving much bigger and prosperous states behind.

Not only this, the state is also ranked fifth in the country in the total contribution towards revenue during this period.

Placed way behind at the ninth position, Punjab’s per capita revenue of Rs 456.40 is less than 25 per cent of Haryana’s Rs 1876.97.

Besides, with the generation of 1,60,964 e-way bills till June 22, Haryana is fourth after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat in this regard.

However, despite its collections of Rs 4,758 crore per month, the state ends up getting barely Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,300 crore per month in its kitty as the GST is a consumption-based tax and Haryana is among the biggest exporters (to other states) of goods and services.

Due to its geographical advantage, a sizeable area of the state falls under the national capital region (NCR) and towns like Gurugram, Manesar, Faridabad, Sonipat etc have industries and services providers which export a plethora of goods from household items to automobiles as well as services provided by software industry to other states.

Sanjeev Kaushal, Additional Chief Secretary, Excise and Taxation Department, Haryana, said that from August last year to March this year, Haryana collected Rs 8536.40 crore as State GST (SGST), Rs 5371.88 crore as Central GST (CGST), Rs 20115.65 crore as Integrated GST (IGST) and Rs 2794.52 crore as Cess, making the total revenue collection of Rs 36818.45 crore.

“Therefore, the average collection per month under all Acts of the GST from the State of Haryana was Rs 4602.3 Cr. As per the data available, the State ranked fifth in the country among all states in terms of total contribution to the GST revenue. The state of Haryana ranked behind the much larger States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Naidu and Gujarat. With total population of the state being 2.54 crore, Haryana has recorded the highest per capita revenue of Rs 1876.97. Punjab is placed at the ninth position with per capita revenue of Rs 456.40,” Kaushal added.

While Haryana collected a total revenue of Rs 36818.45 crore, only Rs 8536.40 crore out of this was towards the SGST, which entirely goes to the state.

The state also received Rs 1641.17 crore by way of the IGST settlement and Rs 667 crore as provisional GST settlement during this period.

“Suppose, an automobile company sells a large consignment of cars to another state, the IGST will be charged immediately. But the settlement is a gradual process that happens as and when the vehicles are sold to an end buyer,” explained a source.

As the Centre assures the states a minimum of 14 percent hike in the revenue earned in the preceding year, Haryana also received Rs 1199 crore as compensation from the Centre for revenue less recovered than the protected revenue.

The GST was rolled out across the country from July 1 last year.

During the process of migration, 1.98 lakh dealers registered under the VAT and Central Sales Tax and 27561 taxpayers registered under the Central Excise and Service Tax migrated to GST.

The tax base under the GST has widened significantly as 155970 new business entities were registered under the GST in the year 2017-18, making a widening of the tax base by a whopping 71 percent.

“Our officers have worked very hard and used the technology to the optimum levels to ensure that the revenues to which the government was entitled were not evaded,” said Kaushal.