GST revenues during March 2024: Upswing continues; J&K registers 26% growth

Jammu, Apr 1: Maintaining its continuous upswing, Jammu and Kashmir registered a 26 percent growth of GST revenues during March 2024, compared to the collection of the same month of the previous financial year.

As per Union Ministry of Finance, the GST revenue collected in the month of March 2024 in J&K was Rs 601 Cr compared to Rs 477 Cr in March 2023. J&K recorded 23 per cent Year-on-Year (Y-o-Y) growth in GST revenue in February, 2024.

This impressive streak has been maintained by the Union Territory of Ladakh also as it has achieved 82 percent growth of GST revenue during March, 2024 than the collection in the same month last year.

In the case of Ladakh UT, the gross GST revenue collected in March, 2024 was Rs 41 Cr compared to Rs 23 Cr in March 2023.

Under pre-settlement SGST head, J&K registered growth of 25 percent while post-settlement, it recorded 11 percent growth. In the case of Ladakh, it was 46 percent growth under the pre-settlement SGST head and 26 percent growth post-settlement.

Notably, the Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting supplementary Demands for Grants 2023-2024 and interim budget 2024-2025 of Jammu & Kashmir too had noted that Union Territory’s economy remained on right track with the GSDP growth for financial year (2023-24) expected to be 7.5 percent.

“The Union Territory government continues to focus on equitable growth in all the sectors of the economy. For sustaining the developmental initiatives, the government pursued the tax and non-tax avenues judiciously. Dealer registration under GST has been expanded from about 72,000 in 2018 to 1,97,000 in 2023. Focused enforcement and dealer outreach drives have been undertaken. Capacity building of taxation staff was undertaken with support of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. For stemming GST leakages, a mechanism for tracking purchases was developed. For tracking GST deduction under capital works and improving tax realization, GSTN verification has been linked with bill payment system,” she had mentioned.

The Union Finance Minister had pointed out that with support of NIC, the UT initiated the e-Stamping system for registration of documents. “This enhanced stamps and registration revenues from Rs 190 Cr in 2018-19 to Rs 486 Cr in 2022-23. The Union Territory government has notified the new excise policy and established a transparent system of auctions in the allotment of liquor vends. The e-Abgari platform is being strengthened for tracking the supply chain and enhancing excise revenue. These measures have enabled revenue from GST, Excise and Stamps to register healthy growth. The revenue collection under Goods and Services Tax touched Rs 6018 Cr in 2023-24 (upto December 2023) exemplifying 10.60 per cent growth over such revenues in the same period of 2022-23,” she had mentioned.

As per statistics of the Union Finance Ministry, Gross Good and Services Tax (GST) revenue for March 2024 witnessed the second highest collection ever at Rs 1.78 lakh Cr, with an 11.5 percent year-on-year growth.

This surge was driven by a significant rise in GST collection from domestic transactions at 17.6 percent. GST revenue net of refunds for March 2024 is rs 1.65 lakh Cr which is the growth of 18.4 percent over same period last year.