The State is staring at a revenue shortfall of about Rs. 4,000 crore by the end of the financial year, unless the major revenue earning departments do exceedingly well in these two months to reverse the trend.
As against the annual revenue target of Rs. 61,357 crore, the State has achieved Rs. 44,868 crore by January-end as against the target of Rs. 47,468 crore.
Below expectation
Sources said that while the Excise and Stamps & Registration departments have done exceedingly well, with their revenues crossing the set targets till January-end, Commercial Taxes and Transport departments' performance fell below the expectations.
Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy who reviewed the resource mobilisation with various revenue-generating departments here on Tuesday directed the officials to step up efforts to achieve targeted revenue.
Though the State's performance in achieving 94.5 per cent of the targeted income has been reasonably good, every one per cent of shortfall would mean an income loss of over Rs. 800 crore. More so, when the expenditure was planned on the basis of targeted income for various welfare and development programmes. “Thus, the government is concerned over the income shortfall of Rs. 2,600 crore till the end of January,” said sources.
Strike effect
The Commercial Taxes Department that accounts for major percentage of State revenue achieved about 94 per cent of the target so far. Against the January's target of Rs. 31,000 crore, the department earned Rs.29,427 crore. Its annual target stands at Rs.41,300 crore.
The ‘Sakala Janula Samme' in the Telangana region for over two months and other agitations for and against State bifurcation, had taken a toll on the trade and business volumes for about two months with an adverse impact on the commercial tax revenue, the sources have added.
Land transactions
However, there is some cheer as the Stamps and Registration department performance improved with land transactions and registrations picking up in the districts though the State capital is yet to regain its past glory in the real estate sector.
The department exceeded its target of Rs.3,434 crore and realised Rs. 3,523 crore (102 per cent).
The Transport Department earned Rs. 2,499 crore, 85 per cent of its target of Rs. 4,333 crore and Mines and Geology too lagged behind with Rs.1,822 revenue (75 per cent) as against the target of Rs. 2,423 by January-end, sources said.
