Himachal bags SKOCH 'e-Governance' award

Shimla, June 19

The Himachal Pradesh Government has bagged first prize in the finance and revenue categories nationally in the SKOCH State of Governance Report 2021. The Department of State Taxes and Excise received the award at a ceremony held at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, yesterday as part of India Governance Forum.

Himachal was chosen for the award because of several initiatives taken by the state government by implementing the HP-VAT-IT Project in the state besides 31 online services, reduction and rationalisation of business-related compliance burden on taxpayers and other stakeholders.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, who was presented this award by the State Taxes and Excise Department, congratulated the officers and officials of the department for the achievement. He lauded the efforts of the department and hoped that the department would continue to excel in future as well. Despite Covid restrictions, the Department of State Taxes and Excise has collected around Rs 8,500 crore during the financial year 2021-22 against the collection of around Rs 7,000 crore during the last financial year which is over 20 per cent.

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 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.