Odisha has registered positive growth in the State Goods & Service Tax (GST) collection for the first time in the current financial year after the pandemic had led to the drastic dip in the collection.

The collection of State GST (OGST) in July 2020 increased to Rs. 794.02 crore as against Rs. 702.44 crore recorded during the corresponding month last year (July 19), registering a growth rate of 13.04%.

This is in the backdrop of poor performance during the first quarter of 2020-21 which was due to unprecedented lockdown of the state economy during the month of April – May 2020.

The growth rate of OGST for April 20, May 20 and June 20 was negative proportion at – 61.15%, -25.22% & -5.83% respectively. This turnaround of positive growth rate in July, 2020 is primarily due to regular persuasion & facilitation by the field officers, continuous monitoring and hand holding supported by data analytics by the Commissionerate of CT & GST as well as better performance in the mining sector, said officials.

In the meantime, the return filing position of the State assigned taxpayers for February 20, March 20, April 20 and May 20 has been 92.31%, 81.99%, 74.72% and 60.03% respectively in comparison to 76.24%, 79.67%, 77.66% and 79.88% during the corresponding period of last year.

Taxpayers have been advised to meet their tax compliance liabilities within the prescribed due date. Another indicator of growth of business in the state economy is movement of goods, both interstate or intrastate, with utilization of waybills.

The daily average figures for inter-state & intra-state waybill utilization for the first week of March 2020 (prior to lockdown) was 20,790 & 24,907 respectively. The corresponding figures came down to 1,559 & 5,671 respectively in the first week of April 2020 (peak of lockdown) before recovering to 16598 &20893 respectively during the last week of July 2020 which is in the range of 81-83% of the pre-lockdown level.

The collection from one of the non-GST items – petroleum products, is also showing encouraging trends during July. The collection of July 2020 against this item increased to Rs. 521.47 crore from Rs. 509.03 crore collected in July 2019 registering a growth rate of 2.5%.