Telangana government to speak out on GST

Hyderabad: The State Government is gearing up to raise the issue of "indifference" of the Centre towards the state in releasing the funds that are due to Telangana. It proposes to raise this issue in a strong manner at the GST council meeting to be chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on December 18. The state government will also explain how this has adversely affected the state's economy.

As the Centre had failed to release the state share from GST, the state government has been finding it difficult to implement various welfare schemes it had taken up as well as other developmental activities. The Centre has to release Rs 1,700 crore as GST compensation. It is also yet to release Rs 2,812 crore IGST (Integrated Good and Service Tax) as part of the GST for the year 2017-18.

It may be mentioned here that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had already written a letter to the Centre explaining the financial problems faced by the state due to delay from the Centre in releasing funds.

Telangana has got less than 14 per cent GST collections this year. The TS officials will also pitch for the disbursement of state's share from the GST collections in a time-bound manner so that the Telangana will meet the fund requirement for the implementation of the schemes without any delay.

Officials of the State Finance and Commercial taxes departments will make a presentation on how the tax collection network was strengthened by using the advanced technology and ensure every trader pays the tax without fail. The Centre has convened the GST council meeting as there has been steep fall in the tax collections between April and November in the current financial year.

The Union Minister has convened this meeting with all state governments to discuss the possibilities of increasing the tax slabs for generate more revenues. Currently, there are four slabs under the GST Act — 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent. The Centre is mulling to add two more slabs and bring some goods in the purview of higher tax slab.