SHILLONG, Feb 13: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma recently said the state’s own tax revenue has doubled in a span of six years.
Chairing the first-of-its-kind live session on Pre-Budget Consultation for FY 2025-26 at the conference hall of the secretariat, Sangma said Meghalaya’s own tax revenue has increased from Rs 1450 crore in 2018 to Rs 3217 crore today.
“These are the actual numbers going from Rs 1450 crore to Rs 3217 crore in a matter of six years. We have doubled our tax collection of our own revenue receipts. These are AG figures,” he added.
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Conrad Sangma also informed that the excise revenue has also increased from Rs 199 crore to Rs 458 crore in a matter of six years and announced that the revenue is expected to cross Rs 520 crore this year.
“The increase in excise has gone up from Rs 199 crore to Rs 458 crore. I just had a review meeting. We are expecting to cross Rs 520 crore this year itself.”
He added, “I think the number here proves that from Rs 199 crore to Rs 500 crore reflects the commitment of this government to plug the loopholes that are there, and numbers are showing that our efforts are yielding results where our excise revenue has almost tripled in the last six years. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely there is. This is a reflection of our policies and commitments that this government is showing.”
Responding to a question from one of the stakeholders, Sangma said, “We will explore that option but I will tell you the main player for ensuring that we are able to minimize the leakages is actually technology. So we have to implement technology in a correct manner to monitor every movement that comes and every sale that takes place. We have removed the layers of collections, we have centralized the collection process so that there is not many layers of collection taking place but whether the state government runs it or bond or whoever runs it the chance of leakage can always be there if we don’t have proper monitoring and proper technology to implement and monitor every single movement that is taking place.”
Further, Sangma said that a lot of budgets is being put in for schools and higher and technical education.
“The expenditure has gone up from Rs 1085 crore to Rs 2338 crore today. We have seen a 14 % jump in education and for the first time actually we are implementing a lot of the actual infrastructural improvement.” (NNN)
