The Centre on Monday released Rs 1,65,302 crores as Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation to states/Union Territories for the financial year 2019-20 against cess collection of Rs 95,444 crores.
"The Central Government has recently released GST compensation of Rs 13,806 crores to states for March 2020. Taking this amount into account, entire compensation up to 2019-20 has been released to states. The total amount of compensation released for the year 2019-20 is Rs 1,65,302 crore whereas the amount of cess collected during the year 2019-20 was Rs 95,444 crore," the Ministry of Finance said in a press note.
To release the compensation for 2019-20, the balance of cess amount collected during 2017-18 and 2018-19 was also utilised.
In addition, the Centre had transferred Rs 33,412 crores from the Consolidated Fund of India to the Compensation Fund as a part of an exercise to apportion balance of Integrated Goods and Service Tax (IGST) pertaining to 2017-18, the ministry added.
Maharashtra received the highest GST compensation from the Centre amounting to Rs 19,233 crores. It was followed by Karnataka which received Rs 18,628 crores from the government.
( With inputs from ANI )