Harish lauds commercial taxes dept

HYDERABAD: Finance minister T. Harish Rao on Saturday said officials of the state government should always bear in mind that the rest of the country follows what Telangana does, and thus also have a responsibility to ensure the results of development programmes reach everyone.

Harish Rao, addressing a brainstorming session of officials from the Commercial Taxes Department, said it created history by collecting the highest commercial taxes of Rs 72,564 crore in 2022-23. Complimenting the department officials and staff, he said the brainstorming session would help them this year too in reaching their tax collection goals.

“The Telangana government, led by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has implemented many public welfare programmes and is the leader in the country on this front. These require enormous resources and the commercial taxes department plays a very important role in the realization of revenues for the government,” Harish Rao said.

Telangana, he said, “stands as a zero cess-taking state from the Centre which underscores Telangana’s commitment to progressive taxation policies.”
He said Telangana with its welfare schemes, serves as a model for the country.

“The state’s programmes such as Mission Bhagiratha, Rythu Bandhu, and initiatives like including ambulances for animals and establishing medical colleges in each district, have been adopted as models by several other states, and the central governments,” he said.

Harish Rao said, “Telangana ranked first in India in terms of its state-owned revenue growth rate over the past eight years, and attributed this impressive growth to transparent governance, that has become synonymous with the state’s administration.”