PATNA, April 2 -- In the fiscal year 2025-26 that ended on Tuesday, the state government's own internal resources through revenue collection from major departments looked positive with an estimated collection of Rs.56,000 crore as against the target of Rs.59,520 crore for the current FY, officials in the state finance department said. The highest collection is from commercial taxes department, which has achieved a growth of 9.20% in state GST collection in FY 25-26 from last year FY 24-25. The total revenue collection from state GST stands in the fiscal year 25-26 stands at estimated Rs.32,801 crore which is 11.67% higher than the collections of previous FY 24-25. After adjustment of IGST, the exact state GST collection for FY25-26 stands at 32,077.22 crore, which is 9.20% growth from fiscal year 2024-25 collection of Rs.29,351 crore, officials said. Secretary, commercial taxes department , Sanjay Kumar Singh, said that the growth rate in collection from state GST is over 9% while the gross collection is 11.67% in FY 25-26 , which is much higher than fiscal year of 24-25. "This is a major achievement for the department signifying tight tax compliance and also putting a check on leakages and tax evasion. We have achieved high gross collection despite a reduction in GST tax slabs on many items, including cement and consumer goods," he said. In terms of all cash collections ( SGST+CGST+IGST+Cess), Bihar has registered a growth of 10.60 % in FY 25-26 vis-a-vis FY 24-25. "The growth is next to that of Karnataka. The national average is 6.4%," said a commercial taxes officer. The overall gross collection of commercial taxes in FY 25-26 ( which ended on Tuesday) stands at Rs.43,324 crore , which is a rise of 4.09% than FY 24-25 collections. More importantly, the commercial taxes department has managed to achieve 93.17% of the total revenue target of 25-26, which stood at Rs.46,500 crore. Officials said there was a deduction of Rs.700 crore due to earlier arrears while the value added tax (VAT) on petroleum production is also steady this year despite tax rate reduction on aviation turbine fuel and piped natural gas/compressed natural gas. "Diesel consumption has decreased a bit due to use of fuel pumps through electricity in rural areas. These are certain factors for a dip in VAT. But overall gross collection of the commercial taxes has been good," said the commercial taxes department, commissioner. Around Rs.1,363 crore has come from tax penalties imposed on 369 firms which were engaged in the clandestine trade of fake invoices to claim input tax credit, sources said. Meanwhile, sources said that the government's total revenue collection from four major departments like commercial taxes, registration, transport and land revenue stands around Rs.56,000 crore (till late evening on Tuesday) as against the targeted revenue collection of Rs.59.520 crore. In non-tax category, the revenue target from mining stood at Rs.3,850 crore in this fiscal year. "The tax collections from major departments have been near to the target, which would help the state in financing various projects and schemes as well as help in balancing the rising expenditure on account of salary, pension and interest payment to an extent in coming fiscal year," said one official in the finance department. The state's revenue collection from internal resources in FY 24-25 stood at Rs.53, 578 crore. Significantly, the state finance officials who would closed the fiscal year balance sheets late on Tuesday evening were also optimistic that the state's estimated budget for FY-25-26 standing at Rs.3.17 crore would be fully utilised as per the receipts due to higher expenditure and use of funds in various schemes like the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana (MMRY) under which Rs.10,000 has been disbursed as first instalment to around 16.7 million women beneficiaries, higher allowances to widows, people with disabilities and senior citizens (to beneficiaries fulfilling the criteria) and other schemes. "By estimation, our spending will be Rs.3,17 lakh crore as per our budget. There will be no unutilised funds as there has been a big outflow of funds to beneficiaries of various schemes both run by the state and central government," said another finance official. The exact figure of expenditure made in this fiscal year against the receipts would be known in next few days, sources said. Besides, the state government has also got its share of central devolutions to the tune of Rs.1.40 lakh crore, which is near to the revised target of Rs.1.43 lakh crore, officials added....