Uttar Pradesh is witnessing a consistent increase in its revenue under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, with the latest being 67 per cent in 2021-2022 to a total of Rs 98,107 crore. The state government is using this increase to fund welfare programmes for the poor, downtrodden section of the society.
The government has also reduced VAT on petrol and diesel without increasing any tax, giving relief to the general public, as per a government spokesperson.
CM Adityanath has implemented a wide range of economic reforms for revenue growth while maintaining transparency through use of technology. In addition, the government also held an awareness drive for traders to encourage them to pay tax. With the continuous efforts of the government, more than 63,032 traders have registered themselves for GST as against the target of 35,000 in the first 100 days, which is almost double of the target.
Besides, Uttar Pradesh ranks first in the country in GST returns, the government spokesperson said. Over 95 per cent of the traders have filed their returns till March 2021 in the state. As per the data of the Revenue Department, in the year 2017-2018, a revenue of Rs 58,738 crore was generated, which has increased to Rs 98,107 crore in 2021-2022, reflecting an increase of around 67 per cent in the last five years.
The Yogi government has registered a revenue increase of Rs 39,369 crore in the financial year 2021-2022 and the state government is spending much more from its treasury for the welfare of the poor in the financial year 2022-23 than in the past.
It is worth mentioning that as soon as CM Yogi took charge of the state for the second term in a row, he proposed Rs 3200 crore for providing free ration to the poor. The government is also providing two free LPG cylinders in a year to the poor while an amount of more than Rs 15,000 crore is being spent on providing pensions to the senior citizens, destitute and the differently-abled.
In the same sequence, an amount of more than Rs 54,883 crore is also being spent to fulfill the 97 promises made in Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra 2022 of BJP, of which more than Rs 7000 crore is proposed for the new schemes.
In a bid to get more traders registered under the GST, the Revenue Department conducted a massive registration awareness campaign from November 2021 to January 2022. Under this, 8439 camps, 8672 seminars, 721 mega seminars were conducted and as many as 5946 hoardings were put up. Under the campaign, over 54,682 new traders registered themselves. In the year 2021-22, about 2,99,480 new registrations were done.
From April 1 to July 22 in the year 2022-23, more than 98,032 new traders registered themselves for GST. Now, the number of traders registered in the state is 18.15 lakh.
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Over 14,067 traders benefitted from the interest and financial penalty waiver scheme run by the government from February 27 to October 31, 2020, and the government received Rs 115.16 crore. At the same time, from February 3 to September 2, 2021, 14,575 traders got benefitted under this scheme and an amount of Rs 130.28 crore was deposited in the government treasury. In two years, an amount of Rs 245.44 crore was received by the government as revenue