“We have been on a drive to plug evasion and the impact is visible. People should comply with the law and a culture of being compliant is coming in. This will drive more people to register and pay, or face action,” said a senior government official.
Government sources said that the Centre and the states have taken a “reasonable approach” on online gaming, which is akin to gambling, with the new regime kicking in from Sunday.
The collections in September, based on transactions in the previous month, saw a strong growth in central and state GST. Central GST collections are estimated to have increased 18% to Rs 29,818 crore, while SGST grew 18.4% to Rs 37,657 crore.
Integrated GST collections were hit by imports and went up 3.9% to Rs 83,623 crore. IGST on imports, which account for nearly half the kitty, fell 0.2% to Rs 41,145 crore, official data showed.
“GST collections of Rs 1.6 lakh crore, representing the transactions in the first of the four month long festive season, augur well for the coming months and is in line with the other high frequency indicators which reflect a positive uptick in the economy… the increase of 14% on domestic transactions ties in well with several other macroeconomic indicators, which reflect the growth in domestic production and consumption,” said M S Mani, partner at consulting firm Deloitte India.