GST Mop-Up in February Grows 12.5% to Over Rs 1,68,337 Cr

New Delhi: With showing resilience in the Indian economy, the country’s gross goods and services tax or GST collection in February 2024 jumped 12.5 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to over Rs 1.68 lakh crore, while the HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index or PMI rose five-month high of 56.9 in the same month as compared to 56.5 in the previous month, two separate data showed on Friday.

As per the finance ministry, the GST mop-up in February grew 12.5 per cent to over Rs 1,68,337 crore, buoyed by domestic transactions. However, the total gross GST collection for the current fiscal (April 2023-February 2024) stood at Rs 18.40 lakh crore, 11.7 per cent higher than the mop-up for the same period last fiscal. “The average monthly gross collection for the current fiscal stood at Rs 1.67 lakh crore, exceeding Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the last fiscal,” the ministry said in a statement.

As far as the breakdown of GST revenue for February month is concerned, the ministry also said that the collections in CGST were Rs 31,785 crore, SGST Rs 39,615 crore, integrated goods and services tax (IGST) Rs 84,098 crore, including Rs 38,593 crore collected on imported goods, while cess collected was Rs 12,839 crore, including Rs 984 crore collected on imported goods. “The Centre settled Rs 41,856 crore to CGST and Rs 35,953 crore to SGST from the IGST. This translates to a total revenue of Rs 73,641 crore for CGST and Rs 75,569 crore for SGST,” it said.

Meanwhile, another private survey also showed that the HSBC India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index or PMI rose to 56.9 in February compared with 56.5 in the previous month due to a robust rise in new export orders and sustained domestic demand in the country. “The production levels were raised in tandem with a further steep increase in inflows of new orders, besides advanced technology and buoyant demand conditions,” it showed.

The PMI number comes a day after the government's GDP numbers grew by 8.4 percent in October-December 2023, with growth in the manufacturing sector's gross value added moderating to 11.6 percent from 14.4 percent in the previous quarter. A reading of over 50 on the PMI, which rose from 56.5 in January to 56.9 last month, indicates an expansion in activity.

Attributing businesses’ optimistic outlook for India, Ines Lam, economist at HSBC, also said that the production growth continued to be strong, supported by both domestic and external demand. “Manufacturing firms’ margins improved as input price inflation slipped,” said Lam in a note.

The upturn in manufacturing output was the strongest seen for five months and was led by the capital goods category. “Similarly, factory orders expanded at the quickest pace since September and one that was above the long-run series average. However, firms indicated that marketing efforts continued to bear fruit, helped by a positive demand environment,” the survey showed.

Notably, the survey also pointed out that new export orders rose at the fastest rate in nearly two years, with anecdotal evidence highlighting Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, mainland China, Europe, Indonesia, the US, and UAE as sources of demand growth. “Input costs meanwhile increased only fractionally, with the rate of inflation subsiding to the weakest in the current sequence of inflation that stretches back to August 2020,” it noted.