Excise Rules tweaked to generate more revenue

SHILLONG: The state government on Thursday amended the Excise Rules introducing pre-paid Excise duty for bonded warehouses in a bid to improve the revenue of the Excise department.
Speaking to media persons after discussing the matter for the second day in a row in the Cabinet, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said that with the change of rules, the government would now be able to mop up 15-20 per cent additional revenue.
The bonded warehouses will now have to pay the Excise duty at the time of purchase from the companies and not at the point of sale to retailers.
Retailers will also have to pay a fee — ‘retail lifting’ fees of two rupees per case — when they take the items from the bonded warehouse.
“It will be just two rupees per case, but will be mean around Rs 60-70 lakh revenue for us,” Sangma said.
The Cabinet also decided to levy 40 per cent ad-valorem on the lifting of the IMFL by military and paramilitary forces.
The Excise department earns an annual revenue of about Rs 227 crore and the target for this year is Rs 250 crore.
Stating that the state is banking on technology to check revenue leakage and has already introduced QR codes in the Forest department which has made it almost next-to-impossible to duplicate the challans, the chief minister said this would help in augmenting revenue once coal mining and transportation resume.
He said the Cabinet’s decision is in consonance with the government’s endeavour to generate more revenue.
“The government is taking a number of steps to do that. We are ensuring policy changes and technology intervention for overall revenue growth”, he said.