Excise duties, realty deals lift Karnataka's revenues

The government’s cash registers have started ringing with key departments showing signs of recovery after a turbulent first quarter, especially excise and property registration.

Authorities, however, are uncertain on the trend in future collections due to continued uncertainty over Covid-19.

With an average target of around Rs 1,050 crore per month, the Stamps & Registration Department had collected just Rs 378.76 cr in the first two months of the fiscal. It surged to Rs 780.95 crore in June, Rs 705.76 crore in July and Rs 987.19 crore in August.

It has collected Rs 230 crore in the first 10 days of September, resulting in a revenue of Rs 3,092 crore till date, which was 24% of Rs 12,655 cr target for the fiscal.

K P Mohanraj, Inspector General of Registration and Commissioner of Stamps, said the department was “positive and confident” that revenue will improve in the coming months. “Predicting how much of the target will we reach is difficult,” he said, adding that a clear picture would emerge only after one or two months.

Revenue is dependent on the pandemic, he noted. “While improvement in revenue is a positive sign, growing number of Covid cases is a concern,” he added.

The Excise Department, which has an annual target of Rs 22,700 cr for the fiscal, had registered zero revenue in April due to the lockdown. Though collection in May (Rs 1,387 crore) was below the revenue generated in same month last year (Rs 2,052 crore), it has since exceeded the last year’s tally in each of the subsequent months. In June this year, Excise mopped up Rs 2,459.56 crore (Rs 2,404 crore in June 2019), Rs 1,904 crore in July (Rs 1,686 crore) and Rs 1,828 crore in August (Rs 1,684.55 crore last August).

The Transport Department, too, is seeing a similar trend as Stamps & Registration, with revenues approaching the average monthly target.