Andhra Pradesh govt requests Centre to release its pending central sales tax dues

Andhra Pradesh government has requested the Centre to release the long pending Rs 7,269.46 crore central sales tax compensation to the state. State Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu made this plea to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley  at the Empowered Committee meeting of Finance Ministers in New Delhi, a press release from the state's Information and Public Relations Department said.

Andhra Pradesh is scheduled to get Rs 935.74 crore for 2012-13 fiscal year, Rs 2,247.98 crore for 2013-14 and Rs 618.19 crore till June in 2014-15 fiscal before the bifurcation of the state.

"Andhra Pradesh's share of CST compensation before the bifurcation (in June 2014) is Rs 3,801.92 crore. "Post-bifurcation, we have to get Rs 1,467.54 crore (July 2014 to March 2015) and approximately Rs 2,000 crore in 2015-16," Yanamala said.

"The Union Finance Minister promised to release the first of the two instalments for 2012-13 shortly. We have requested him to release the balance amount also at the earliest," Yanamala added.

At the Empowered Committee meeting, Andhra Pradesh pointed out that Clause 19 of the 122nd Constitution Amendment Bill (for GST), passed by the Lok Sabha, raised doubts that the states might not be compensated for the revenue losses for five years. "Hence it should be modified such that Parliament passes a law providing compensation for minimum five years.

"States have a bad experience in getting CST compensation promptly from the Centre. We insist that the compensation for revenue loss due to introduction of GST shall be granted in a time-bound manner every month or at least once in a quarter. "Otherwise, it will have a huge impact on the ways and means position of the state government," said Yanamala.