Kolkata: The office of the West Bengal Chief Minister, Suvendu Adhikari, has directed all state government departments to prepare department-wise blueprints for the identification of revenue leakages and suggest measures to prevent these to ensure an overall increase in the generation of the state’s own tax revenue.
An insider from the state secretariat of Nabanna said that besides preparing the blueprint on this count, the departments concerned have also been directed by the CMO to prepare a report on the targets of revenue collections set by the departments concerned during the previous Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government and also how far the targets were achieved.
“Every department has been asked to inform the CMO about where and when the last tax revision was done. The department has also been asked to identify the sectors with high potential for tax leakages with suggestions on how to prevent such leakages. Special emphasis has been given on departments like agriculture, transport, land and land reforms, public works, and health, where the potential of revenue generation and leakages are high,” the state secretariat insider said.
“Already the new state government has adopted some steps to prevent revenue leakages in certain state government departments, which has resulted in additional tax revenue collections to the tune of around Rs 1,000 crore, that too in the first two months of the tenure of the new government if compared to the corresponding period in the last two months. Now the state government wants to extend the exercise across all departments with an aim to improve the overall collection in the state’s own tax revenue by the end of the current financial year of 2026-27. Precisely that is why the individual state government departments have been asked to prepare department-wise blueprints for identification of revenue leakages and suggest measures to prevent such leakages,” the state government official said.
According to him, during the previous regime, this system of revenue leakage was completely intentional, involving massive institutional corruption in it. “The issue of this revenue leakage or looting will also be included in the government’s white paper on this count. The white paper will show how revenue collection was hampered in which sectors and the quantum of loss in the state exchequer because of that,” the state government said.
After presenting the proposal for the state budget for the financial year 2026-27, the state finance minister, Swapan Dasgupta, clearly stated that loopholes enabling tax collection leakages are the key to the target set to improve the state’s own tax revenue generation without burdening the common people with higher tax slabs.
After the state budget proposals for the financial year 2026-27 were announced, questions were raised by certain quarters that the budget proposals lacked specific directions regarding improving the state’s own tax revenue.
However, the treasury bench in the West Bengal Assembly then gave a counter-argument that the secret of the improvement lies in a couple of decisions of the state government on prevention of revenue leakages that it took since the very first day of the new cabinet taking charge.
(IANS)
