Telangana’s own tax revenue at 88% in 2023-24 is the highest in the country, says Economic Survey

Telangana excels in own tax revenue collection, it is the highest among all States.

Telangana State continues to register impressive performance in the collection of its own tax revenues. Telangana State’s own tax revenue (SOTR) accounted to 88% of its total tax revenue, which is the highest among the States, according to the Economic Survey 2024-25 tabled in the Parliament on Friday (January 31, 2025). The State is closely followed by Karnataka and Haryana, each of which registered 86% of their total tax revenues through own taxes.

A State earns own revenue through VAT (tax on excise and petroleum products), Stamps and Registrations Duties, Land Tax, Commercial Taxes, Sales Tax and others.

According to the Economic Survey, the States with higher ratio of own revenue receipts to total revenue receipts tended to have relatively lower ratios of revenue deficit to total receipts. Substantiating the remark, Telangana registered a revenue surplus of ₹1,510.89 crore at the end of 2023-24, according to the preliminary estimates submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year.

Though this was lower as compared to ₹4,881 crore revenue surplus projected in the budget estimates for 2023-24, the State still managed to avoid revenue deficit. The State’s revenue deficit at the end of the third quarter of the current fiscal (2024-25) however was on the higher side at ₹19,892 crore against the projected surplus of ₹297 crore for the fiscal.

The Economic Survey report said that Telangana was also among the few States to have achieved 100% coverage under Jal Jeevan Mission envisaging long term water security to rural households by providing reliable access to safe piped drinking water. The State along with Maharashtra is utilising ISRO’s advanced geospatial platforms for infrastructure monitoring and management. Telangana electrical infrastructure management is facilitated by Bhuvan through Web-GIS services, the survey said.

The State is ranked among strong service sector performers along with Karnataka and Kerala with high per capita service GSVA (gross state value added) and service shares in GSVA, but exhibit only around average industrial per capita GSVA as these regions are largely dependent on urbanised service driven economies.

Another major area where the State has been ranked among the top is irrigation area coverage and irrigation intensity. Telangana exhibits a high irrigation coverage of its gross cropped area at 86%, next only to Punjab (98%) and Haryana (94%).