The government released an amount of Rs. 17,000 crores to States and UTs (Union Territories) on Friday towards the balance GST compensation for the period April to June 2022, the Ministry of Finance said in its statement.
The total amount of compensation released to the States and UTs so far, including the aforesaid amount, during the year 2022-23 is Rs.1,15,662 crore.
The Ministry further said, “This is despite the fact that the total Cess collection till October 2022 is only Rs.72,147 crore and the balance of Rs. 43,515 crore is being released by the Centre from its own resources.”
With this release, the Centre has released, in advance, the entire amount of Cess estimated to be collected this year till March-end available for payment of compensation to States.
This decision was taken to assist the States in managing their resources and ensuring that their programmes especially the expenditure on capital is carried out successfully during the financial year.
Even in May this year, the Central Government had released Rs. 86,912 crores as provisional GST compensation to States for the period Feb-May’2022 despite the fact that there was only about Rs. 25,000 crore in the GST Compensation Fund, by making arrangement of funds of around Rs. 62,000 crore from its own resources.