August 20: The government has made some progress in revenue collection, which was badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic since the last four months.

Officials say that the government is close to meeting its target of revenue collection after lifting the lockdown in third week of July.

According to the Financial Comptroller General’s Office, the government collected revenue of Rs 58.81 billion in between mid-July and mid-August.

The data maintained by the office shows that the revenue collection was Rs 30 billion in the last week alone.

Officials at the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) said that the sudden increase in revenue collection toward the second week of August was due to the collection of VAT and excise duty, which were pending from the last fiscal year.

According to Deputy Director General of IRD Mukti Pandey, the department had set a target to collect Rs 35 billion in the review period. He said they managed to collect Rs 34.74 billion.

IRD collected Rs 29.33 billion from VAT and income tax while the excise duty amount was Rs 5.41 billion. The department informed that excise duty declined last month because the liquor market as well as production was badly affected by coronavirus.

However, revenue collection from customs duty increased during the review period. According to the director of the Customs Department Sishir Ghimire, revenue collection from customs point in mid-July to mid-August was Rs 22.84 billion, which is well above the target of Rs 19.81 billion.

According to him, the improvement in collection of customs duty was possible due to the increase in import of food products, clothes, petroleum products, machinery parts among others after the lockdown was lifted.