Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema announced on Tuesday that the state has achieved a significant fiscal milestone in the financial year 2025-26, recording a 16% increase in Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections, totaling ₹17,860.09 crore, and an excise revenue collection of ₹7,401 crore up to November 2025.
Attributing the success to a combination of innovation and vigilance, Cheema praised the excise and taxation department for exceeding previous performance benchmarks. He also highlighted the department’s implementation of the One-Time Settlement (OTS) Scheme-2025 and the use of advanced data analytics to combat tax evasion.
Cheema detailed that the GST collections grew by ₹2,467.3 crore, marking a 16.03% increase over the same period in 2024. This growth was achieved even after the GST 2.0 rate rationalisation in September 2025, which lowered taxes on essential items from 12% to 5%.
Despite this reduction, the department’s targeted initiatives kept cash tax collections stable. Additionally, the state’s Value Added Tax (VAT) and Central Sales Tax (CST) collections reached ₹5,451.76 crore, a 3.35% increase compared to the previous year, he said.
The finance minister also highlighted the performance of the excise department under the Excise Policy 2025-26, which set an ambitious target of ₹11,020 crore in annual collections. By November 2025, the department had already seen an 8.64% increase in excise revenue over the same period in the previous year. This follows a record-breaking performance in the previous fiscal year, where excise revenue grew by 16.36% to reach ₹10,723 crore.
Cheema emphasised that enforcement remains a key priority, with 3,860 FIRs lodged and 3,795 arrests made this year in efforts to curb liquor smuggling and illicit distillation.
A major highlight of the year, according to the minister, was the success of the OTS Scheme-2025, which has resolved 3,574 cases as of December 18, resulting in ₹52 crore in recoveries while providing tax waivers to the trading community.
The taxation department also leveraged its indigenous Tax Intelligence Unit (TIU) and big data analytics, recovering ₹344.06 crore in taxes and penalties through tool-generated insights. In addition, targeted monitoring of non-filers of GSTR-3B led to ₹2,185.96 crore in cash deposits.
Cheema further praised the state intelligence & preventive units (SIPUs) for their intensified enforcement, noting that penalty impositions rose to ₹618.53 crore between April and November 2025, compared to ₹321.03 crore for the entire previous year.
To sustain these achievements, the finance minister revealed that the department had invested significantly in capacity building, training 5,111 officers through 144 specialised programmes in collaboration with national agencies like the the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics (NACIN) and Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN). These integrated strategies, he said, would strengthen revenue safeguards and maintain fiscal momentum through the remainder of the current fiscal year.
