By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 23 Dec: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami conducted an in-depth review of the revenue receipts and increase in income resources related to the current financial year during a meeting held at the Secretariat with the Finance Minister and senior officials here today. Expressing satisfaction over the state’s revenue collection of Rs 16,436 crore against the total target of Rs 24,745 crore, which is 66 percent of the target, the Chief Minister has given instructions to the officers concerned to complete the remaining target of 34 percent revenue by February. He said that along with effective control on illegal mining, more efforts should be made to increase the sources of income in this area. Along with developing an integrated system for the Transport Department, Traffic Police, Forest and Mining, instructions were given to the State Tax Department to further strengthen the intelligence system. He also asked the officers to prepare an action plan regarding determining the bed level of rivers.
Dhami said that the online system should be further improved to keep a close watch on areas like transport, mining, GST etc. More efforts should be made to increase revenue under GST. Effective measures should be taken to curb tax evasion. The CM also stressed on paying special attention to the use of innovation and information technology to increase income resources. He also said that efforts should be made to ensure local people’s participation in departmental action plans. The Chief Minister said that all departments should work with full alertness and activeness to increase the revenue. He said that UPCL and UJVNL need special efforts to increase their revenue in the energy sector. Vigilance based activities should be carried out continuously in areas prone to electricity theft.
The Chief Minister said that due to 71 percent forest area in the state, there is immense potential for revenue generation in the forest sector. He said that more efforts should be made towards increasing revenue through better utilisation of forest resources. Work should be done expeditiously towards commercial plantation in the Terai areas. Proper arrangements should be made for the sale of firewood. Work should be done keeping in mind the long-term plan for the conservation and sustainable exploitation and cultivation of herbs. The Chief Minister asked GMVN, KMVN and Forest Corporation to improve their working system and pay attention to the basic nature of the action plan of the corporations. He directed that the working capacity of the corporations should also be assessed.
Reminding that this is the decade of Uttarakhand, Dhami noted that an action plan of all departments will have a big contribution in achieving this target. All departments should move forward in this direction with mutual coordination and efficiency. Efforts were made to increase departmental income resources. The functioning of the departments will also become the basis for the development of the state. The Chief Minister also asked to speed up the efforts to prepare the budget for the next financial year.
In the meeting, details of department-wise revenue receipt targets etc were presented through a detailed presentation by Finance Secretary Dilip Jawalkar.
Cabinet Minister Prem Chand Aggarwal, Chief Secretary Dr SS Sandhu, Additional Chief Secretaries Radha Raturi and Anand Vardhan, Principal Secretary RK Sudhanshu, Secretaries R Meenakshi Sundaram, Hari Chand Semwal and senior officials of the departments concerned were present.
