Slowdown hits Maha's revenue target

The slowdown in the real estate sector is getting reflected in slower revenue growth of state governments, too. The Maharashtra government’s revenue collection missed its target by Rs 2,000 crore in the fiscal ended March 31, 2009, of which Rs 1,600 crore alone could be attributed to the drop in stamp duty collection and registration charges, owing to a dip in transaction in properties.

Revenue generated from tax collections, however, increased by Rs 3,286 crore in the financial year 2008-09, though it was still short of the original target by around Rs 2,000 crore.

The target for stamp duty collection in FY09 was Rs 9,600 crore but the state government managed to collect only around Rs 8,000 crore, according to Maharashtra Finance Minister Dilip Walse Patil. Interestingly, in the last fiscal year, the Maharashtra government had managed to exceed the target for stamp duty and registration charges by about Rs 600 crore; the target was Rs 7,200 crore in FY08.

Finance Secretary Vidyadhar Kanade said: “The target for revenue collection was about Rs 85,000 crore but we missed the target by around Rs 2,000 crore.”

“Despite recessionary trends in the economy, we managed to collect higher revenue than in FY08. In FY08, the state’s total collection through taxes was Rs 79,958 crore and in FYO9 we collected Rs 82,869 crore,” said Patil. Except for stamp duty and registration, all other major sources of tax collection have shown an increase, which include VAT, motor vehicle tax, state excise and professional tax, he pointed out.