Assam Budget 2023: Introduction of New Reforms in Excise Dept

Assam Finance Minister Ajanta Neog on Thursday introduced slew of new reforms in the excise department of the state as part of the budget.

While addressing Assam Assembly, Neog said, “As per the provisions of the Excise Act and Rules, the Department is vested with the twin responsibilities of revenue collection and law enforcement and our government has been able to register an impressive growth of revenue collection (approximately 31% over the corresponding period in the previous year) amounting to Rs 2200 crore as in February, 2023.”

The excise department was able to promote marketing of heritage alcoholic beverages by permitting the existing IMFL/country spirit wholesale and retail licenses to sell heritage alcoholic beverages without paying any additional license fee.

The finance minister said, “Our government desires to continue with the reforms being undertaken so far and proposes to introduce some new reforms -Establish a Command Control Centre to address the monitoring of the Track and Trace system, various dashboards of the Excise e-Governance solution and to create alerts for timely intervention by various Excise officials.”

She further said, “We are working on setting up a Data Analytics Unit at Commissionerate of Excise to address the revenue leakages, help understand patterns of revenue over a period of time and to aid in the decision making process.”

Stating these to the assembly, Neog allocated an amount of Rs. 99.57 crores in the Assam excise department.

While speaking on excise tax, Ajanta said, “Collection of Excise tax through e-governance solutions at the first point of sale and roll out of e-Governance solutions resulted in an increase in excise revenue from Rs 850 cr in 2016 to Rs 2150 cr in 2022, an increase of 135% in 5 years (CAGR of 15%).”

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The finance minister said there has been a considerable increase in revenue receipts to the state government in the last two year.

She said, “There has been considerable increase in Revenue receipts to Government in last two years. This growth in State own source revenue is reflected in all segments-Taxation, Excise, Forest, Land Revenue, Transport etc.”

Stressing further on this department, Neog said, “Excise Department has been able to mop up an amount of Rs 2200 cr (up to February, 2023), as against Rs 1674 cr collected for the corresponding period during 2021-22, registering an impressive growth of 31%.”

She highlighted slew of reforms:

• Introduction tamper free high security holograms on each and every liquor bottle to protect consumers from spurious liquor and increase the State exchequer's revenue and curb the evasion of duty through sale of smuggled liquor.

• Rationalization of Ad-valorem levies on IMFL and introduction of new brand.

• Introduction of online Transit Pass mechanism to curb illegal transportation and smuggling of liquor meant for sale in other states.

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