KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
J&K Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu on Monday said that the prevailing situation would “badly impact” growth rate of the state and it has also “adversely affected” the tax collection.
He said that as the business activities have stopped in the valley and has adversely affected from industrialists, down to all.
“Of course the on-going unrest in Kashmir will certainly slow down the economic roads. I am sure that the growth rate will be reduced. Otherwise as I said, the state exchequer is almost half. Transactions have come down. When there are no transactions there is nothing to levy tax on. We cannot collect sales tax,” he told KNS over phone from Delhi
“If there is no transaction that has happened in the last 70 days or if it has come down by 20 percent, 50 percent, 70 percent. Obviously, it will directly impact total collection of state government, it will affect the revenue of the state government,” he added.
“It will not affect the tax revenue in terms of income tax at all because that is the central tax. It certainly affects the most important component that is sales tax. And today, where we should have collected let us say Rs 4000 Crores, we have collected Rs 1200 Crores. There is obviously lacking of collections,” he said.
He said that the “unrest” has also “halted” some developmental works in the valley. “No developmental work was done in last two months, it is known to everybody that no development is on-going on, no roads have constructed, obviously it has put a halt to developmental work,” he said.
“There is a ‘labourer’ whose work is stopped from past two months. The labourer is not working as he is not coming for work. He also lost his income. Present unrest is loss of income, loss for the tax of the state, loss of the business of the traders. It is loss for everyone and that is the fact,” he said.
