The Odisha government has expressed concerns as it is yet to receive GST compensation of Rs 1194 crore for the last two months. This is compensation that the Centre provides to several states and UTs if the revenue growth is less than 14 percent compared to the corresponding period. The GST Compensation Act 2017 entitles the state and Union territories to get compensation on a bi-monthly basis.
Notably, the Centre hasn’t paid this GST compensation to any of the states for the period of August-September. “For the current financial year, the Centre has agreed to fix the protected revenue from GST for Odisha at Rs 18,661.89 crore. Accordingly, the state should have got GST revenue of Rs 9330.94 crore by September-end,” said an anonymous finance department official.
According to the official, Odisha has received Rs 1545 crore as compensation by July-end against a shortfall of 2739.32 crores. This is because the actual revenue collection under GST during April-September was estimated at Rs 6591.62 crore leading to a shortage of Rs 2739.32 crore in funds.
The Centre is yet to release Rs 1194.32 crore for the months of August-September. Though Odisha’s financial department has sent several letters to the Centre in this regard, they haven’t yet received any definite assurance as to when the dues will be cleared.
The Odisha government has decided to raise this issue at the GST council meeting which is likely to be held later this month. Last week, the representatives and the finance ministers of 8 states met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to press their demands for early release of dues.
Experts have claimed that a fall of revenue under the GST might be the reason for the delay in releasing the compensation amount for the August-September period.