Sandeep Dikshit
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 26
Battle lines are drawn for the special GST Council meeting tomorrow. Seven Opposition CMs will press the Centre to borrow from the market to pay four months of revenue collection dues. Representatives of Kerala and Delhi are likely to join forces with them at the meeting.
The Opposition CMs attended a webinar with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and discussed plans to approach the Supreme Court as well as call on the President or PM to implement the Centre's obligation to pay states the promised GST compensation.
Sources indicate that the Centre may ask the states to borrow from the market as per their requirement while it would backstop the loan with sovereign guarantees. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to point out that revenue collection is a collective responsibility and while the Centre would do its best, states should also share the burden.
This cooperative approach is a far cry from the early days of the pandemic when the Centre had sought to impose stiff conditionalities if the states wanted to borrow more. The Centre may point out that the impact of the pandemic was not anticipated when promising a 14 per cent increase in states'compensation. It may also suggest tweaking the GST to bring in additional revenue. But at the centre stage will be a discussion on who would shoulder the burden of borrowings to make up for the GST shortfall.
Figuring it out
Rs95,444 crore cess collection for financial year 2019-20
Rs1,65,302 crore transferred to states during the period
Rs2 lakh crore shortfall expected this fiscal year
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2EA3x6j
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