India's goods and services tax take up 11.5% year-on-year

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's gross goods and services tax (GST) collection in March rose 11.5% year-on-year to 1.78 trillion rupees ($21.35 billion), a government statement showed on Monday, reflecting strong economic growth.

The government had collected 1.60 trillion rupees as GST in the same period last year.

The March total was the second highest since the start of the goods and services tax regime in 2017, the statement said. In April 2023, the government had collected 1.87 trillion rupees as GST.

Average gross monthly GST collection for financial year 2023/24 that ended March 31, was 1.68 trillion rupees as against 1.5 trillion rupees a year ago.

For the fiscal year 2023/24, the government's gross GST collected was about 12% higher than for the previous year at 20.1 trillion rupees, the statement said.

Abhishek Jain, a partner at KPMG, said India's strong economic growth had increased tax collection. The Indian economy grew 8.4% in the October-December quarter year-on-year, outpacing the 7.6% growth recorded for the previous quarter.

India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the economy was on track to grow by 8% or more in the quarter ended March 31, and was expected to show the same rate of year-on-year expansion for the 2023/24 financial year.

(Reporting by Nikunj Ohri;Editing by Alison Williams and Barbara Lewis)