Himachal Pradesh among 16 states

New Delhi: To compensate the Goods and Services Tax (GST) shortfall, the central government has borrowed and transferred Rs. 6,000 crores as the first tranche to 16 states and two union territories under special borrowing window, a press communique of finance ministry said on Friday.

The Government of India has evolved a special borrowing window to address the shortfall in the GST collection during the year 2020 – 2021.

The interest rate has been fixed at 5.19%. The tenor of borrowing will be broadly in the range of 3 to 5 years, finance ministry press communique further added.

Out of the 21 states that opted for the borrowing scheme, five did not have any revenue shortfall to be compensated. The 16 states and two union territories that received funds are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, MP, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, UP, Uttarakhand and 2 Union Territories: UT of Delhi and UT of Jammu and Kashmir.

The centre is likely make weekly releases of ₹6,000 crore to states, finance ministry added.

The central government will borrow Rs. 1.1 lakh crore under the special window to meet the shortfall of GST compensation. The total shortfall in collection of GST estimated at Rs. 2.35 lakh crore. Out of the total shortfall, Rs. 1.1 lakh crore is on account of GST shortfall.