The Centre on Friday said it has released Rs 17,000 crore to the states and union territories 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 crore, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on November 25.
This is despite the fact that total cess collection till October 2022 is only Rs 72,147 crore and the balance of Rs 43,515 crore is being released by the Centre from its own resources, the statement said.
"With this, 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," the statement said.
The decision was taken to assist the states in managing their resources and ensuring that their programmes especially the expenditure on capital is carried out successfully during the financial year, the MoF added.
In May this year, the Centre released Rs 86,912 crore as provisional GST compensation to states for the period February-May 2022 despite the fact that there was only about Rs 25,000 crore in the GST Compensation Fund, by arranging for around Rs 62,000 crore from its own resources.
(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)
