Karnataka fears massive revenue loss after currency chaos

November 16, 2016

Bengaluru, Nov 16: The Centre's move to demonetize high value currency notes threatens to derail Karnataka's revenue collection this financial year. Officials fear that the state might miss its revenue target by at least Rs 5,000-Rs 15,000 crore for the current fiscal. The move has already affected liquor sales, property transactions, and sale of new and used vehicles.

Untitled-1"We are still assessing the impact and will get a clear picture by the weekend. We are certainly expecting some impact,'' said ISN Prasad, additional chief secretary, state finance department. "The government's revenues have taken a severe beating following the demonetization move. Whatever taxes were supposed to come to the state, including commercial taxes, sales taxes and all the revenues have been hampered. It will certainly have a huge impact on this fiscal's tax collection," said another finance department official.

The government's excise department has been the worst hit. The sale of foreign liquor has come down drastically in the past few days. A senior excise department official said: "Most of the excise revenue come from the sale of Indian Manufactured Foreign Liquor. Officials at government outlets have claimed that the sale has gone down by at least 50%."

The government had fixed an ambitious revenue target of Rs 16,510 crore for the excise department this year following a 25% hike in taxes on liquor. The government has collected only about Rs 7,500 crore so far. "People have stopped buying liquor, especially the expensive ones, due to shortage of high-value currency," added the official.

The revenue target for the stamps and registration department had been fixed at a higher Rs 9,100 crore for the current fiscal. Most of this amount comes from revenue layouts through stamp duty and property registration, which has completely stopped since November 8. "Bengaluru is a big market for secondary real estate, which traditionally works on 60:40 white and black money ratio. Ban on transaction of black money has badly hit property registration," said a senior official of the stamps and registration department.

Comments

Althaf
 - 
Wednesday, 16 Nov 2016

Not only in karnataka All over india it will effect.

Skazi
 - 
Wednesday, 16 Nov 2016

let the Govt reduce the Value of lands for registration purposes... then the govt will get back the revenues.... as the buyers will come forward in the real estate business .....
The govt does not apply its mind while fixing the land values ... It goes by survey no.... whether the site has road connection or not,, the govt value is same for all sites ....

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News Network
July 5,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 5: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh each for the families of a youth and a child, who died due to a landslide at Gurupura in Mangaluru.

"The Chief Minister announces Rs 5 lakh each compensation to Safwan (17) and Shehla (10) who died due to landslide at Gurupura, Mangaluru. Houses will also be built for people who lost houses at Bodanthilla, Dakshina Kannada," an official said.

The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon.
The State Disaster Management Authority said that 57 people and 262 animals lost their lives in flood, rainfall and lightning-related incidents in Karnataka between April 1, 2020, and July 5, 2020. 

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News Network
May 17,2020

Bengaluru, May 17: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and Transport Minister Laxman Savadi on Sunday wrote to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari requesting to issue new lockdown guidelines including permission to operate public transport and said the lockdown has caused a financial loss of Rs 16,00 crore to all four Karnataka Transport Undertakings.

In view of these problems, the state Transport Minister requested Gadkari to permit the deployment of Non-AC buses on scheduled routes to ensure the adequacy of services.

The four State Transport Undertakings (STUs) in Karnataka which are providing bus-based public transport services within the state and to the neighbouring states are Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC), North Eastern Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NEKRTC) and Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC).

"KSRTC, NWKRTC and NEKRTC operate buses for mofussil services i.e. Interdistrict, intradistrict and interstate, whereas BMTC operates only in urban and suburban areas in the city of Bengaluru. The four STUs put together hold a fleet of about 24,900 buses including 1,520 air-conditioned buses and operate about 71.00 lakh km. per day and carries about 98.00 lakh passengers every single day," Savadi outlined in the letter.

The Minister said due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the lockdown that ensued have brought regular bus operations and functioning to a grinding halt.

"This has caused a devastating impact on the operations of all the four STUs due to the combination of lack of revenue and continuing fixed costs such as salaries and pensions to staff, payables against existing loans etc. It has been estimated that the lockdown has caused a financial loss of INR 1,600/- crore to these four STUs," he added.

Savadi said even after post-COVID lockdown, operations and revenues won't reach its previous demand& supply patterns in the next six to eight months due to reduced economic activity and users' perceived risk of contacting COVID in public transport.

In addition to that, "occupancy should be allowed up to seating capacity (without standees). This is essential to meet minimal demand," he said in the letter.

"The crew should wear facemask and hand gloves. The crew with health issues should not be deployed. The face masks should be made mandatory for all the passengers. Only asymptomatic persons should be allowed to travel in public transport. The Government of India may consider staggering working hours for various sectors to reduce peak hour traffic demand," the minister listed out these recommendations in the letter.

Savadi said that with social distancing norm of reduced seating capacity in public transport, it will not be possible to provide transport facility to all the daily passengers. This will create demand for more buses, which cannot be met.

"Restrictions on public transport will lead to passenger commute by overcrowding in smaller vehicles like cars, maxi cabs, goods tempos etc. which will adversely affect preventive measures," he added.

Therefore, Savadi requested Union Minister to look into the above matter and issue fresh guidelines to all the states / UT's.

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News Network
May 8,2020

Bengaluru, May 8: 45 more COVID-19 cases have been reported from Karnataka, taking the total number of coronavirus cases in the state to 750, the state Health Department said on Friday.

According to the Health Department, the total cases include 371 discharged cases and 30 deaths.

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