Overview
- Punjab has incurred a ₹47,037 crore revenue shortfall since July 2022 after GST subsumed key agrarian levies on grains.
- Cheema urged extending GST coverage to food grains to recoup purchase tax and infrastructure fees lost in 2017.
- He called for rationalising inverted duty structures to curb roughly ₹1,200 crore in annual refunds and boost cash collections.
- The minister proposed mandatory e-way bills for high-risk goods, compulsory e-invoicing for B2B and B2C supplies, IP mapping, geo-fencing and biometric authentication to deter fraud.
- He recommended a unified AI-driven analytics platform linking state and central authorities for real-time compliance monitoring.