New Delhi, Jan 18 (IANS): The Finance Ministry on Monday released the 12th weekly instalment of Rs 6,000 crore to the states to meet the GST compensation shortfall.

Out of this, an amount of Rs 5,516.60 crore has been released to 23 states and an amount of Rs 483.40 crore has been released to 3 Union Territories (UT) with Legislative Assembly (Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir and Puducherry) who are members of the GST Council. The remaining 5 states - Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim - do not have a gap in revenue on account of GST implementation.

Till now, 65 per cent of the total estimated GST compensation shortfall has been released to the states and UT with Legislative Assembly. Out of this, an amount of Rs 65,582.96 crore has been released to the states and an amount of Rs 6,417.04 crore has been released to the three UTs with Legislative Assembly.

The Centre had set up a special borrowing window in October, 2020 to meet the estimated shortfall of Rs 1.10 lakh crore in revenue arising on account of implementation of GST. The borrowings are being done through this window by the government of India on behalf of the states and UTs. 12 rounds of borrowings have been completed so far starting from October 23, 2020.

The amount released this week was the 12th instalment of such funds provided to the states. The amount has been borrowed this week at an interest rate of 4.4315 per cent. So far, an amount of Rs 72,000 crore has been borrowed by the central government through the special borrowing window at an average interest rate of 4.7024 per cent.

In addition to providing funds through the special borrowing window to meet the shortfall in revenue on account of GST implementation, the government of India has also granted additional borrowing permission equivalent to 0.50 per cent of Gross States Domestic Product (GSDP) to the states choosing Option-I to meet GST compensation shortfall to help them in mobilising additional financial resources.

All the states have given their preference for Option-I. Permission for borrowing the entire additional amount of Rs 1,06,830 crore (0.50 per cent of GSDP) has been granted to 28 states under this provision.