kolkata: In the wake of Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing clearance of GST compensation dues to states in the 49th GST Council meeting, Bengal’s Finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya has criticised the Centre for continuing to deny Bengal its dues due to alleged non-submission of accountant general (AG) certificates with GST compensation cess claims since 2017-2018.
Sitharaman, during Saturday’s meeting, announced the clearance of all GST dues to the tune of Rs 16,982 crore. She categorically said: “In addition, the Centre would also clear the admissible final GST compensation to those states which have provided the revenue figures as certified by the Accountant General.” During a media interaction, she reportedly showed that Bengal did not back a single GST compensation claim with AG certificates, unlike six states which have submitted and are hence eligible for clearance.
According to Chandrima Bhattacharya, Bengal did submit its claims with AG certificates for 2017-18 and 2018-19. She said that the claims of the Union Finance minister are not entirely true. She assured Bengal will send AG certificates for the rest of the financial years. She felt that till then the Centre could have cleared the state’s dues to some extent. She added that the AG is in control of the Central government. “Why should the state suffer because of a delay on the part of the AG in issuing the certificates?”
Recently, Bhattacharya clarified that the Centre owes more than Rs 2400 crore to Bengal as GST compensation. She said that the compensation amounts released to the state are based on gross revenue. Only for 2017-18 and 2018-19, it was released based on net revenue. If net revenue is considered, the Union government owes Bengal Rs 2,409.96 crore for the rest, she explained.
The state and the Union government have been at loggerheads over funds concerning various sectors, including the MGNREGA scheme where the latter has accused the state of misusing funds. Trinamool Congress government has accused the Centre of “illegally” withholding funds to exact revenge for BJP’s defeat in the 2021 Bengal
Assembly elections.