State Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy sought an early release of the GST compensation due to the State, at the 42nd GST Council meeting in which he participated virtually on Monday.
He pointed out that the devolution to States from the Consolidated Fund of India came down from ₹18 lakh crore in 2018-19 to ₹15.50 lakh crore in the subsequent year (2019-20) in spite of a substantial increase in cess and surcharge collections by Centre, which went up from ₹2.65 lakh crore to ₹6 lakh crore during same period.
Such anomalies have to be rectified, the Minister stated.
The Central government should look into those things and make necessary course of corrections, which would be of great help to Andhra Pradesh which bore the brunt of bifurcation and had its economy in shambles due to COVID-19.
Mr. Rajendranath Reddy stressed the need to allow the States to make an additional 2% borrowings from the subject to the fulfilment of certain criteria, to help them meet the liquidity needs.