PANAJI
The State government’s excise collections for the three month period between May and July this year grew by a massive 56.5% compared to the same period in the previous year.
This may sound like music to the government’s ears particularly when it is struggling to grow its
revenue from other taxes due to huge reduction in Goods-and-Services-Tax (GST) rates.
A source informed, “The excise collections stood at Rs 45.7 crore, Rs 49.02 crore and Rs 34.84 crore in May, June and July respectively in 2018. Last year in 2017, the excise revenue was Rs 28.15 crore, Rs 27.81 crore and Rs 26.81 crore in May, June and July respectively.”
This means that the State government earned Rs 129.56 crore in May-July this year, which was 56.5% more than Rs 82.77 crore it earned last year in the same period.
When asked for the reason for such a high growth, the source replied, “Around 8-10% growth in excise revenue was due to increase in excise duty rate in the financial year 2018-19. Apart from that, growth is mostly attributable to increase in alcohol consumption by tourists visiting the state.”
The source continued, “We must also realise that April 2018’s excise collections at Rs 27.76 crore were 11.4% lesser than last year’s April collections of Rs 31.41 crore. In April, many operators are busy with issues like renewal of licenses labour, so the growth is seen in later months of May onwards.”
In the last few days of March, just before the beginning of the current financial year on April 1, the State government had issued a notification by which it had drastically increased the excise duty on the manufacture of several kinds of alcohol.
For example, the Finance Department had kept the excise duty at Rs 25 per bulk litre on the manufacture of IMFL like whiskey, rum and vodka (with less than 80 UP strength) if the maximum retail price didn’t exceed Rs 100 per 750 ml bottle. Earlier, excise duty was Rs 20 per bulk litre on same kinds of alcohol if the price wasn’t more than Rs 90 per 750 bottle.
Interestingly enough, the growth in State’s excise collections despite steep hike in duty shows that people don’t reduce alcohol consumption even if they have to pay more.
