Uttarakhand loses crores every year due to GST, government upset due to June deadline, now pleading with PM

The deadline of June next month remains a big concern for the Uttarakhand government. In fact, after the implementation of the GST (Goods and Service Tax) system, Uttarakhand is very backward in revenue collection, in return for which the state is getting reimbursement of thousands of crores from the central government. After June, the Center will stop giving reimbursement to the states and this concern remains a problem for the state.

GST (Goods and Service Tax) was introduced in the country by the Government of India to implement a uniform tax system across the country. However, for hilly states like Uttarakhand, the GST regime has been very harmful. Various state governments of the country also lodged their protest regarding GST, but in Uttarakhand, the GST was implemented from July 2017. In this new tax system, Uttarakhand is losing thousands of crores every year, in return for which about 4500 crore is being given by the central government as compensation for the loss being caused to the state. Now the concern is that from June onwards the central government will stop giving this reimbursement and the state will have to go through a loss of thousands of crores every year.

Troubled by these conditions, the state government is contemplating how to overcome the problems in GST. For this, talks have also been held with the Chief Minister at the Finance Minister level. Therefore, now the state government has only hope from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. State Finance Minister Premchand Agrawal says that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been giving importance to Uttarakhand and he hopes that when the state government makes an application to the Center, then keeping in mind the circumstances of Uttarakhand, the Prime Minister will give some as revenue for the state. Special arrangements will be made. With regard to the collection of revenue from Uttarakhand tax, the state was increasing since its inception. In terms of statistics, the state was increasing the tax by about 19 per cent every year. From the year 2000 to 2017, the tax in the state was increased by about 31 times. That is, starting with 250 crores, Uttarakhand had reached ₹ 7200 crores in tax collection. But after the implementation of GST, the state has been lagging behind in tax collection.

The big reason for this is also that in GST, the benefit of SGST i.e. tax received by the state gets the most, only those states where the goods are used. In this respect, the rest of the states are more capable than Uttarakhand. Even after the goods are manufactured in the state, that is, the state in which those goods are sold, that state benefits in the form of SGST.