Karnataka resgisters impressive revenue growth in Q1

New Delhi, July 15 (UNI) Karnataka has registered an impressive revenue growth for the first quarter of financial year 2006-07, with encouraging collection in Value Added Tax as well as Sales Tax, state's Deputy Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said here today.

The Deputy Chief Minister, who was here to attend the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers, told newspersons that revenue collections between April to June this year showed a 12 per cent increase with the collections touching Rs 1,602 crore as against Rs 1,432 crore last year during the same period, the first year of collections under VAT regime.

The Sales Tax collections too had touched Rs 743 crore from Rs 608 crore marking a 22 per cent increase.

In the first year under VAT regime during 2005-06, Karnataka saw a negative growth of 0.55 per cent in VAT collections while the VAT and Sales Tax collections together recorded a 7.07 per cent increase.

The fiscal discipline of the state has drawn applause of the Planning Commission, which has hailed the finances of Karnataka, Rajasthan and Haryana for not resorting to Over Draft for managing its finances from the Reserve Bank of India.

To make the dealers comply with the new regime, the state had conducted an extensive survey visiting 165,679 business premises and unearthing 58,202 unregistered dealers, Mr Yediyurappa said.

The survey will continue to ensure more compliance, he added.

The next meeting of the Empowered Committee of Finance Ministers of States will be at Kerala.

UNI MCN VJ HS2106