Chandigarh, March 6 -- Amid the Punjab government's claims of a sharp surge in revenue receipts during its tenure, the growth in the state's tax revenues has slowed during the 2025-26 financial year. The state recorded a single-digit year-on-year increase in its collections in the first 10 months of the year, significantly lower than the tax revenue growth in the preceding three years. Tax collections stood at Rs.68,409 crore between April 2025 and January 2026, 7.82% higher than Rs.63,445 crore during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. This single-digit growth marks the slowest pace of increase in tax receipts during the tenure of the current government, according to an analysis of key fiscal indicators maintained by the accountant general of Punjab. The tax revenue growth was 13.31% year-on-year during the corresponding 10-month period of 2022-23, 21.37% in 2023-24 and 18.32% in 2024-25. The growth was driven by higher receipts from goods and services tax (GST), the state's share of Union taxes, stamps and registration fees, and other taxes and duties. While the state's share of central taxes has more than doubled, and revenues from GST, state excise duties and stamps and registrations rose between 66% and 91% over the past four years, the bulk of this increase was recorded in the first three years. Finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema told reporters on Tuesday that the state's own tax revenues had recorded remarkable growth in the past four years, showing a massive increase over the collections during the previous governments. He said as compared to the five-year terms of the SAD-BJP (2012-17) and Congress (2017-22) governments, there was a surge in receipts from excise, GST and land and property registrations. "The previous Congress administration relied heavily on GST compensation and failed to take concrete steps to broaden the tax base, but we have improved compliance and plugged leakages in goods and services tax and excise by intensifying monitoring and deploying the latest software and technological solutions to strengthen tax administration," he said. In the first 10 months of the current fiscal, all tax revenues, except state excise, have recorded single-digit year-on-year growth. State excise collections have risen 11.18% so far. A finance department functionary attributed the tapering increase to a high base effect after strong numbers in the preceding three years and the impact of the GST rate rationalisation by the central government in September last year. The finance minister said the changes in GST slabs had impacted collections. "As a result of these rate cuts, we had estimated a financial loss of Rs.6,000 crore annually in our revenues, but efforts are being made to reduce it to around Rs.4,000 crore through strict monitoring. Earlier, our goods and services tax revenue was growing at 14% plus," he said. GST has been the single largest contributor to the state's own tax collections. Of the own tax revenue of Rs.63,250 crore projected in the 2025-26 budget estimates, the state expects to garner Rs.27,650 crore, or around 44%, from GST. In 2024-25, GST accounted for 43.50% of the state's tax revenue. Tax collections constitute 80% of the total revenue receipts of the state, while the remaining 20% comes from non-tax sources such as general services, sale of government properties, and fees, surcharges and penalties levied by the revenue, housing and urban development, transport, health, education and other departments. The state's non-tax revenue has shown a 180% year-on-year growth, rising to Rs.14,666 crore during the April-January period of 2025-26, compared with Rs.5,172 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal....