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Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that like other states, GST revenue collections enormously increased in Tripura too.

Before the GST was introduced, Tripura received only Rs 4.21 crore as Central Sales Tax (CST) in FY 2016-17, whereas the state collected Rs 982.50 crore IGST in FY 2022-23 from inter-state trade, she said after inaugurating the newly-built GST Bhawan here.

She emphasised the importance of good infrastructure which can be leveraged to serve taxpayers better resulting in improved revenue collection.

The new GST Bhawan would help the common citizens to come and get facilitated in GST-related matters and it increases accessibility of officers to the public.

The Finance Minister highlighted that post GST, revenue generation for Tripura has been extremely favourable. Also, with GST Bhawan, it becomes important to carry out outreach programme along with state authorities to make people aware of benefits of GST and encourage more people to get enrolled, she added.

Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra said that infrastructure is important for awareness and to involve people in the process and to increase collection of revenue.

Central Board for Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Vivek Johri said that the government is striving to ensure a good working environment both for officers and the traders. He stated that GST Bhawan in Agartala is the second such GST office in the northeast region and that proposals for GST Bhawans in three other northeastern states are at various stages of approval.

Chief Commissioner CGST & Customs, Guwahati, Yogendra Garg, stated that GST Bhawan, Agartala, built at a cost of Rs 28 crore, would address the need to provide better taxpayer services by CGST Commissionerate as number of taxpayers has grown from 1,734 pre-GST to over 12,500 taxpayers in 6 years of GST.

The Union Finance Minister also chaired a review meeting of Regional Rural Banks of northeastern states in Agartala on Friday.