Andhra Pradesh witnesses huge shortfall in revenue in first quarter

Amaravati: The economy of Andhra Pradesh badly hit due to coronavirus. For the first quarter of current financial, only Rs 6,095 cr revenue achieved out of the expected Rs 13,425 cr. This is a big shortfall. The revenue achieved upto June 2020 is around 45.39 per cent only, according to the officials in the Finance Department at Secretariat. The shortfall to the target is Rs 7331 Cr. Even in 2019, the government received revenue to a tune of Rs 11005 Cr till June.

The State government expected that at least Rs 6,825 cr revenue would be generated from the GST alone in the first three months, but only Rs 3,510 Cr realized. That is just 51.43 per cent. On the other hand, for the corresponding period in the previous financial year, a total of Rs 5,383 Cr achieved. In this year, the shortfall to the target in GST is estimated as Rs 3,315 Cr.

The other revenue sectors including Petroleum products, liquor and professional tax also did not yield good results. Just Rs 1860 Cr revenue generated till June 2020 from Petroleum products, which is 57.3 per cent to the target. But, for the same period during 2019, Rs 2,662 Cr revenue was achieved. At least Rs 1381 Cr shortfall appeared in the GST revenue this year, in the first quarter.

Due to various reasons, including a hike in the prices with an intention to discourage the alcohol consumption by the Government, only Rs 693 Cr revenue generated from Liquor sales in the State till June 2020, out of the expected Rs 3,294 Cr. In fact, the same sector achieved Rs 2,909 Cr in the corresponding period in 2019. Here, there is a shortfall of Rs 2,600 Cr to the target. Roughly, just 21 per cent of the estimated revenue realized.

The government got only Rs 30 Cr under the Professional Tax, against the expected Rs 64 Cr till June 2020. It is Rs 34 Cr shortfall to the target. Only 47 per cent of revenue was achieved.

In fact, the more dangerous finding is, even this much revenue is because of the circulation of money by both state and central governments in the name of welfare schemes during the lockdown period. The sectors like real estate, steel, cement, automobiles, electronics and service are showing poor performance and it is estimated that the trend will continue, observed Peeyush Kumar, Commissioner, Commercial Taxes informed with this Correspondent in a formal interaction. He also added that the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), certain electronic goods and others were good, apart from the agriculture economy. At the same time, the revenue from cinema halls, tourism and other service sectors was almost zero, he observed. Yet, he hoped that there would be chances for the economy to gain momentum.