Shillong, Sept 8: The collection of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the state witnessed an increase of 5% over corresponding period of last year, according to the state’s finance department.
The total GST receipts from April-August, 2024 for Meghalaya is Rs 772 crore while GST for the same period in 2023 was Rs 737 crore, which is an increase of 5% in the receipts this time.
The growth rates for other States in the North East are – Assam 7%, Arunachal Pradesh – 8%, Manipur – 11%, Mizoram – 1%, Nagaland – 0%, Sikkim -16% and Tripura – 11%, it said.
The statement said that the State Government had been taking up awareness creation activities, especially among the small shopkeepers who procure goods from outside the State, to ensure that the invoices are generated with Meghalaya addresses so that the GST accrues to Meghalaya.
Further, it said that intensive scrutiny of returns is being carried out to check evasion.
“In the current Financial year 376 cases involving an amount of Rs 121 crore are under scrutiny,” the department said while adding that recent reportage on dip in GST collections of the State is only based on one month data (April 2024) of returns filed and doesn’t take into account all the settlements.
Further, the department informed that the overall GST collections of the State, including SGST, IGST and CGST, clearly shows an increasing trend.
“Meghalaya GST collections have registered growth rate of 35.87%, 32.12% and 16.66% during 2021-22, 22-23 and 23-24 respectively. The GST collections have grown up
from Rs 1,118 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 1,723 crore in 2023-24,” it said.