Cash crunch hits Telangana hard

​Hyderabad: The present cash crunch has come as a major blow to the collection of revenue in Telangana. The state has recorded a fall of 15 per cent so far this month. The officials expect that it might even go up to 20 per cent by April 30 if the crisis continues.

According to commercial taxes officials, the cash scarcity had its impact on the entire commercial activity in the state for the last three weeks. As a result, regular trading has slowed significantly. The only silver lining is that the drop was not steep in case of revenues collected as VAT from the sale of fuel and as excise duty from sale of liquor.

The tax collections from the Land Registration and Transport department mainly through vehicle sales and registrations have been affected adversely. The government has a target of Rs 2,200 crore through VAT, land registration and vehicle registration. Till date, the state exchequer could get only Rs 1500 crore. By the end of this month, the government is expecting only Rs 300 crore revenue, leaving a shortfall of Rs 400 for the month.

Revenue collection from GST has also been affected. The filings by traders was not up to the expectations with poor commercial activity under the influence of cash crunch. The number of weekly filings by traders has gone down. Out of registered 80,000 traders under the GST, 30 per cent of them submit filings every weekend. This month, it hardly registered 15 per cent.

The total impact of cash crunch on the state economy will be known once the details of the GST collections in Telangana are received from the Centre in May first week. To ease the situation in districts, the state government has initiated talks with the RBI and other major banks operating in the rural Telangana. "Since it is a crucial year ahead of 2019 elections, the government is putti­ng all efforts to meet the financial requirements to fulfill the pro­m­ises. The government has target­ed Rs 1 lakh crore revenue in the new financial year, the tax official said.