The Himachal Pradesh government has won first prize in the finance and revenue categories nationally in the SKOCH State of Governance Report 2021.
The award was received by the State Taxes and Excise department at a ceremony held at India Habitat Center, New Delhi as a part of India Governance Forum on Saturday evening.
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Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur was presented this award by Commissioner State Taxes and Excise department Yunus and senior officers of the department at Shimla today.
Thakur congratulated the officers and officials of the department for this achievement and lauded the efforts of the department and hoped that the department would continue to excel in future as well.
The CM said the state was chosen for the honors because of several initiatives taken by the state government by implementing the HP-VAT- IT Project in the state and introducing around 31 online services, reductions and rationalization of business-related compliance burden on taxpayers and other stakeholders.
Despite covid restrictions, the department has collected around Rs 8,500 crores during the financial year 2021-22 against the collections of around Rs 7,000 crores during the last financial year which is more than 20 percent. This substantial increase in revenue is due to proactive measures taken up by the department, providing ICT based hardware and software to the field authorities, imparting regular knowledge, training to the field officers and stakeholders for better compliance in a time bound and transparent manner.
The department also won the SKOCH award for the implementation of the Excise e-governance project leaving behind other states, he added.
