The Centre released an amount of Rs. 17,000 crore to States/UTs yesterday towards the balance GST compensation for the period April to June 2022.
The total amount of compensation released to the States/UTs so far, including the aforesaid amount, during the year 2022-23 is Rs.1,15,662 crores.
This is despite the fact that the total cess collection till October 2022 is only Rs.72,147 crores and the balance of Rs. 43,515 crores 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 are carried out successfully during the financial year.
Even in May this year, the Centre had released Rs. 86,912 crores as provisional GST compensation to states for the period February-May despite the fact that there were only about Rs. 25,000 crores in the GST Compensation Fund, by arranging funds to the tune of around Rs. 62,000 crores from its own resources.