RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister and Commercial Tax Minister T S Singh Deo on Tuesday underlined the need to motivate more traders and businessmen to deposit Goods and Services Tax (GST).

He was holding a review meeting of the department at New Rest House, Raipur.

He said that the development of the state is linked with tax collection. Therefore, according to the target and provisions of GST it should be collected.

He asked the officials to increase revenue collection by removing deficiencies where there is a shortfall in tax collection as per the target in the current financial year.

He also asked to organize a departmental meeting in the coming months of August and September to review state tax collection. The tax base can be expanded further by registering a maximum number of people associated with trade and business. It will also increase revenue.

The state has 1.73 lakh dealers registered under GST. Of these, 15,000 are dealers with a turnover of more than five crores. And the number of dealers taking advantage of composition is 35,000.

Secretary, Commercial Tax Department, Himshikhar Gupta called for departmental officers to continuously monitor the receipt of GST from the top 100 dealers. He said after a thorough review of tax collection in those commodity areas where tax collection is not as per the expectation.

Commissioner of Commercial Tax Department Ritesh Aggarwal said in the current financial year 2023-24, a target of tax collection of Rs 22,000 crore has been set.

In the first quarter (from April 1, 2023 to June 25, 2023), a tax of Rs 4,512.35 crore has been collected, which is about 21 percent of the target for the whole year.

Aggarwal said that in the last financial year 2022-23, there has been an increase of Rs 2,929.89 crore in tax collection in the state, which is about 20 percent more than the year 2021-22. In the last financial year, a total tax collection of Rs 17,808.66 crore was done while in 2021-22 the revenue of Rs 14,878.77 crore was received.