New Delhi: The Government of India has released Rs 6430 crore to Odisha Government as back-to-back loan to help the State to meet the resource gap due to shortfall in release of GST compensation.
Minister of State (MoS), Ministry of Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply informed to the Lok Sabha on Monday.
As per decision in 43rd GST Council meeting, Centre has borrowed Rs. 1.59 lakh crores from the market through special window and passed on to 26 States and Union Territory (UT)s as back-to-back loan, he said.
Accordingly, Odisha has received Rs 6430 crore till today during the current financial year 2021-22.
The revenue collected by the State of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim is more than the revenue protected as per GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017.
Therefore, these States are not eligible for back to back loans under the Special Window Scheme.
Similarly, the Centre has released Rs 286 crore to Odisha as GST compensation on 3 November, this year, said Mr.Chaudhary.
The Centre has released a total amount of Rs17,000 crore on 3 November, 2021 towards GST compensation to States from the Compensation Fund.
This is in addition to GST compensation of Rs 43,303 crore released to States and Rs 1.59 lakh crore as back to back assistance during the current financial year, informed the MoS Finance.
During 2020-21, Centre had released compensation of Rs 1,36,988 crore and back to back assistance of Rs 1.1 lakh crore to the States and UTs.
As per another reply of Mr.Chaudhary to the Lower House of the Parliament, the fund flow to Odisha as its share in ‘Shareable Pool of Taxes’ of the Union Government is on decline during the past three financial years.
Under this head, the Centre had released Rs 35,353.73 crore to Odisha during the financial year 2018-19, which decreased to Rs 30,453.25 crore in 2019-20 and subsequently, fell down to Rs 27,542.67 crore during the last financial year 2020-21.
Union Government devolved States’ share in Central Taxes and Duties in terms of approved recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
There are no pendency in disbursement on this account to the State Governments, the Minister added.
It may be pointed out that Odisha has all along raised the issue of decline in Central Transfers to the State.
As compared to Financial Year of 2020-21, Odisha has received 15 Percent less Central Transfer than 2019-20, for which 17 Percent Negative growth has been experienced by the State, which requires pumping of more funds for development.