State's revenues up 20% during April-Nov period

The state government has managed to mobilise Rs 34,259 crore in revenues during the first eight months of the current fiscal-ended November 2010, compared to Rs 28,522 crore collected during the corresponding period last year, showing a growth of 20.1 per cent.

Of the revenue receipts, collections of the state’s own tax revenues have been more buoyant with a 29.4 per cent increase. The collection during April-November 2010 was Rs 24,001 crore compared to Rs 18,458 crore during the same period last fiscal.

According to a release from the government here today, a focused attention on improving the tax administration contributed to this increase.

Commercial taxes contributed almost 62 per cent of the state’s own tax reven-ues. Up to October 2010, the commercial tax collection was higher by 31 per cent compared to last year. This was higher than that in the neighbouring states like the 26 per cent of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh’s 24 per cent and 27 per cent achieved by Maharashtra.

The tax revenues of the state increased over three times from the average of Rs 12,602 crore during 1999-2004 to Rs 39,342 crore during 2008-2011. During 2010-11, the tax revenues are expected to be Rs 45,288 crore, the release stated.

During 1999-2004, 23 per cent of the state’s expenditure was financed from the borrowings. During 2008-2011, the dependence on the borrowings to finance the expenditure has been brought down to 16 per cent.

The plan expenditure from the state budget has increased by 13.2 per cent from Rs 11,115 crore in April-November 2009 to Rs 12,582 crore in April-November 2010.

The non-plan expenditure has been regulated so that more funds can be provided for the development schemes. The increase in non-plan expenditure has been 6.8 per cent only from Rs 21,237 crore in April-November 2009 to Rs 22,673 crore in April-November 2010.

With the current trend of the resource mobilisation and the non-plan expenditure, the state government expects to see an Annual Plan size of Rs 31,050 crore approved by the Planning Commission. The achievement till November 2010 has been around Rs 16,600 crore including expenditure financed from the internal and extra-budgetary resources (IEBR).

The state government has undertaken new beneficiary-oriented schemes and has enhanced the scope of existing schemes. The major beneficiary-oriented schemes of the state government have a total budgeted outlay of Rs 6,270 crore for the year 2010-11. The schemes would provide direct benefits to over 1.84 crore persons.

The average fiscal deficit during the 1999-2004 period was 4.4 per cent of GSDP. From 2004-05, with the KFRA in force, the government has kept the fiscal deficit within the 3 per cent norm. For the years 2008-09 and 2009-10, the fiscal deficit target was relaxed on the advice of the Central Government to spur the public spending to tide over the economic slowdown, the release added.