Telangana tax collocations remained constant

Hyderabad: The State government measures on collection of taxes in terms of cost of collection as a percentage of the Gross Revenue Collection (GRC) of major taxes remained almost constant compared to previous years.

It is one among the several observations made by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its report tabled in the State Assembly here on Friday.

On the tax collection front, it said that they are almost constant compared to previous years in respect of taxes on vehicles, stamps and registration fees.

However, there was improving inefficiency in respect of taxes on sales, trade etc said in its review of the State Goods and Services Tax and State Excise.

On the committed expenditure in the budget, it said that the burden of committed expenditure measured as a percentage of Revenue Expenditure of the State. On this front, what was steadily rising during the previous years has declined by six per cent from 61 per cent of Revenue Expenditure in 2017-18 to 55 per cent in 2018-19.

There was an increase in interest payments to the tune of 16 per cent, subsidies of two per cent, and salaries by 1.5 per cent. However, pension payments, on the other hand, decreased by four per cent.

Specifically, the CAT pointed out that the greater reliance on market borrowings by the Telangana government in recent years has led to an increase in liabilities on account of interest payments.

The State government's focus on some fields to incur development expenditure is however is resulting in the lesser expenditure on some other sectors, it added.

The public watchdog, in its observations on the adequacy of public expenditure, said that the Telangana focused more on Development Expenditure to the tune of Rs 93,483 crore and Capital Expenditure of Rs 22,641 crore.

It said that the focus of the State government on education was comparatively lesser across the years. The per capita expenditure in some major socio-economic sectors shows that agriculture got the top priority with a 97.82 per cent increase in per capita expenditure over the previous year due to a new Investment Support Scheme (Rythu Bandhu).

Similarly, there was a considerable increase of 12.41 per cent on health and family welfare over the previous year. However, there was a considerable dip in the per capita expenditure in respect of transport by 14.32 per cent, and education, sports, arts and culture by 6.19 per cent, it said.