The Central Government released the Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation amounting to Rs 5,122 crore to Odisha for Financial Year 2019-20.
While the Central Government had recently released GST compensation of Rs 13,806 crore to States for March, 2020, Odisha received Rs 328.75 crore, said an official.
The total amount of compensation released for the year 2019-20 is Rs 1,65,302 crore whereas the amount of cess collected during the year 2019-20 was Rs 95,444 crore.
“The Union Government has utilised the balance cess amount of previous fiscal years to compensate States for their revenue losses during 2019-20,” said a senior official.
“The Centre had also transferred an amount of Rs 33,412 crore from the Consolidated Fund of India to the Compensation Fund as a part of an exercise to apportion balance of IGST pertaining to 2017-18,” said a Union Ministry of Finance release.
“The compensation released will come as a big relief to States like Odisha impacted by revenue losses due to the pandemic situation. The full GST compensation will also provide fiscal boost to speed up development works and further assist the States/UTs in scaling-up the ongoing response to Covid-19,” said Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
It is pertinent to mention that, Odisha’s revenue collections have dipped by 23 per cent in the first quarter (April-June) of the current financial year 2020-21 in comparison to corresponding time of previous year due to the Covid-19 situation.