Agartala, July 15: Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has demanded release of the pending GST Compensation for Tripura.
He placed the demand during his meeting with Union Minister for Finance- Nirmala Sitharaman in Delhi on Thursday.
Deb, according to a government press release, highlighted that an amount of Rs. 153.90 crore was yet to be released as GST Compensation for the period April, 2020 to March, 2021 for the State of Tripura.
He requested the Union Finance Minister to release the balance amount of GST Compensation for the period April, 2020 to March, 2021.
The Chief Minister discussed a series of issues pertaining to the socio-economic development of Tripura during his meeting with Sitharaman.
Deb then spoke on the issue of Open Market Borrowing (OMB), a government press release said.
The Chief Minister also proposed inclusion of rubber and its product under the purview of RCM under Section 9(3) of the GST law and demanded for reducing compliance burden of the grower / agriculturists under the GST Law.
According to press release, he pointed out that Tripura is the second largest raw rubber producer in India and the growers/ producers are mainly agriculturist; but raw rubber and its scrap, latex, Indian Standard Natural Rubber (ISNR) and residual products of raw rubber are yet to be covered under the purview of Reverse Charge Mechanism (RCM) under section 9(3) of the GST Law.
In absence of RCM on raw rubber and allied items GST cannot be charged at the time of purchase of the raw rubber from the agriculturists by the registered person under GST Law and hence substantial due amount of tax is deferred from payment of tax.
During the year 2020-21, the inter-state outward supply of rubber and its products from the State of Tripura was Rs.1839.39 crore, Deb said.
The Chief Minister also discussed the state specific projects as per recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission.
He highlighted that the 15th Finance Commission (FC) had made recommendations to the Central Government to provide state specific grants of Rs. 875 crore for 5 projects in the irrigation, tourism and urban development sector.
The state specific grants included Check Dams at Champaknagar and Champiacherra and Water Supply Project for Agartala (Rs. 400 Crore), Development of 7 District Head Quarters (Rs. 200 Crore), Development of Mata Tripura Sundari Temple and Neer Mahal (Rs. 175 Crore) and Construction of Central Building for State Level offices (Rs. 100 Crore).
The Chief Minister in a tweet commented that his meeting with the Union Finance Minister was 'fruitful' and she had assured full support to Tripura.