Delhi government 30 per cent short of budget estimate

New Delhi: The Delhi government is in for a financial lock. Its revenue estimates for the current year are at least 30 per cent short of its budget estimate. The shortfalls are in all the key areas — stamp duty, property registration fee, Value Added Tax and excise, which implies manufacturing services and real estate are badly hit.

Financially, the government will find it hard pressed to pursue its welfare promises — free Wifi, free education, free healthcare. Ever since the AAP government came to power, it got into governance and administration issues with lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung. Instead of focusing on what it could do, it concentrated on the administrative and legal issues with the L-G. In the process, the governance took a back seat.

The government had put a budget estimate of Rs 36,525 crore for tax collections for 2016-17. After demonetisation, the government reduced the tax collection target to Rs 32,950 crore in revised estimate on November 23. Reports suggest that the government was able to collect only Rs 20,061 crore taxes till November. That means the government will have to raise about Rs 12,000 crore till March 31 next year to match up with its revised estimates.

Though the maximum tax collections are raised from January to March every year, there is a fear in the bureaucratic circles that this year, revenue collections may show a steep decline due to post demonetisation impact on manufacturing services and real estate. “The way trade sector has been affected after demonetisation, there are chances that we may be short of about 15 per cent of our revenue collections in the current financial year,” a senior bureaucrat told this newspaper.

Reports show that the collections raised through stamp duty and registration fees, including land revenue, stand at Rs 2,244.85 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 3,625 crore. Despite the fact that demonetisation having hardly any impact on the sale of liquor, the excise collections stood at Rs 2,631.20 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 4,700 crore.

The VAT collections, which form a major share of the government’s revenue, have logged at Rs 13,554.87 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 22,000 crore. Even taxes raised through sale of vehicles has been as low as Rs 1,123.01 crore against the revised estimate of Rs 1,750 crore.