The statement said that the growth in GST revenue as compared to that in months of July, August and September, 2020 shows the trajectory of recovery of the economy and, correspondingly, of the revenues, it said. Pratik Jain, Partner & Leader, Indirect Tax, PwC India noted that given the surge in number of returns filed and the fact that there is clear uptake in demand due to revival of economy as well as upcoming festive season, it is not surprising that collections in October has exceeded Rs 1 lakh crore. “One of the reasons for higher number of returns could be the fact that the last date for claiming input credit for 2019-20 was September 30 and a lot of companies would have carried out a yearly reconciliation and asked their vendors to file returns or report missing transactions,” he said. Jain was of the view that given the festivities, collections in November could also be robust.

Rajat Bose, Partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co said: “The collections in October are very encouraging. Festive buying coupled with policy tweaks promoting ‘Make in India’ seem to be the main reasons behind the rebound. Hopefully, this trend will continue in the coming months.”

According to M.S. Mani, Senior Director, Deloitte, the increase in collections indicates the “definitive” revival of consumption and festival spends across the economy. “Continuance of this trend will help in narrowing the fiscal deficit for FY21 and will go a long way in reviving business confidence across sectors as the impact of the unlock process across states gets translated into GST collection figures,” Mani said.