Hyderabad: Fuel and alcohol have come to the rescue of the state exchequer, which has suffered huge losses since the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on July 1. Both fuel and alcohol have been exempted from GST, which means that the state government gets to keep the revenue.
The VAT on petrol and diesel fetched the state government Rs 4,331 crore, and taxes on liquor brought in Rs 3,472 crore in July and August, post-GST.
The state government’s tax revenue has nearly halved since GST was introduced. It earned Rs 7,751 crore through taxes, excluding fuel and alcohol, from April to June. This fell to Rs 3,000 crore after GST was introduced on July 1.
Without the revenue from fuel and alcohol, the state government would have struggled to pay even salaries of its employees. Fuel and alcohol have together contributed Rs 7,803 crore through VAT in July and August.
