Excise levy goes up marginally
Ambika Sharma
Tribune News Service
Solan, October 2
Revenue generation on account of liquor sales under the excise levy has registered a marginal increase in the state in September.
As per the figures secured from the Excise and Taxation Department, revenue worth Rs 136.68 crore has been collected in September on account of excise, while this figure stood at Rs 123.07 crore in the corresponding period last year. An increase of 11.06 per cent had been registered in the state last month.
Though the quantum of revenue received has suffered drastically, owing to the Covid restrictions, minimum loss has been suffered in excise revenue till now vis-à-vis last year. A sum of Rs 775.51 crore was generated as excise revenue last year from April to September, while this year Rs 604.39 crore have been earned during this period. A deficit of 22.07 per cent was suffered in excise, much less than that suffered on account of sales tax/VAT, state-GST, passenger goods tax (PGT) and other taxes, which was 23.38 per cent, 22.29 per cent, 40.40 per cent and 33.05 per cent, respectively.
Excise and Taxation Commissioner Rohan Chand Thakur said: “We are ahead of last year in revenue collection for the month of September by Rs 50.73 crore and sectors like excise, state-GST and PGT have shown improvement. Measures like e-way bill checking have been put in place to perk up revenue.”
Field officials, however, said since the duty structure and all excise levies had been increased by 17 per cent, the liquor licencees had to shell out more on licence fee and a Covid cess, ranging from Rs 5 to Rs 10 per bottle, had also added to the higher levy. They said it did not necessarily reflect more liquor consumption.
“Measures like introduction of the Himachal Pradesh (Legacy Cases Resolution) Scheme for pre-GST era dues settlement was also bearing dividend and tax returns for July. These were also reflected in the revenue of September month as the date of filing returns had been extended,” a field official added.
