Telangana FM T Harish Rao Urges GoI To Release GST Money

T. Harish Rao, the Finance Minister of Telangana, on the 12th of June, urged the Central Government to release the Good Service Tax (GST) amount to Telangana.

Mr. Rao cited economic crisis faced by the State and asked the GST Council to release the pending amount of the GST for the rescue of the State during thec.

Telangana faced a huge economic crisis in the past 3 months due to the pandemic crisis, the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 and the nationwide lockdown.

The issues were raised by the Finance Minister of Telangana during the 40th GST Council meeting, organised on the 12th of June by the Union Finance Ministry.

During the virtual GST Council meeting, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Finance Minister of India  discussed the economic situation of States in India.

T. Harish Rao said, due to the lockdown, Telangana is not in a position to pay full salaries to the government employees.   He asked the Central Government to release the devolution funds for the state for June 2020 and GST compensation worth Rs. 3,975 crores for April and May 2020.

In addition, Mr. Rao also urged for the reversal of IGST amount of Rs. 1.76 lakh crores from the Consolidated Fund of India.

Mr. Rao said, “Telangana has performed well in revenue front and is one of the few states which had taken little GST compensation from the Centre since the introduction of the GST. When the need for compensation arises and the Centre is not coming forward to fulfil its obligation, it will be very disappointing to the state.”

He further said, “Telangana is not getting any revenue on account of revenue deficit and 15th Finance Commission also not favored the state by reducing the state share in the devolution.  Telangana has achieved the highest revenue target since the implementation of the GST in July, 2017 and did not take any compensation during the years 2017-18 and 2018-201.”

Meanwhile, Telangana recorded 4,484 cases of the Novel Coronavirus positive cases.  Out of the total, 2,032 are active cases, 2,278 recovered and 174 deceased.

Stay tuned for further updates.