India, Aug. 6 -- LUCKNOW Even as Uttar Pradesh remains nonplussed over sluggish GST growth, fake firms are eating into the state's revenue by fraudulently claiming input tax credit (ITC), without carrying out any actual transactions.

A month-long drive by the state tax and the central GST departments, which is still on, unearthed a massive scam involving over 233 bogus or non-existent firms, resulting in a loss of more than Rs.120 crore to the state exchequer - and counting.

"On our part, we have caught 33 bogus/non-existent firms registered under the state GST. Action, including lodging of FIRs against them, is being taken," UP state tax commissioner Nitin Bansal told HT.

Another state tax department official revealed that two of the ...