Finance Minister To Chair GST Council Meet Today

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the 41^st GST Council meet scheduled for today. Due to the COVID-19-induced restrictions in place, the meet, however, will be virtual.

As per a report by The Economic Times, the meet will revolve around finding a way to compensate the states amid a shortfall in revenue faced by them.

The ANI reported, "Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the 41st GST Council meeting today via video conferencing. The meeting will be attended by MoS Finance Anurag Thakur besides Finance Ministers of states & UTs and senior officers from Union Government & states: Ministry of Finance."

As learnt, the Centre may either ask the States to borrow individually from the market to make up for their revenue losses, or it may yield to the proposal backed by the States that entails the Centre borrowing money from the market and then distributing it among the cash-strapped states.   

The law says that the GST Council would make up for the loss of revenue triggered by GST implementation. However, the Center has already said that the dwindling tax collections in the current financial year are not because of GST implementation and that the unprecedented situation set forth by COVID-19 be treated as an exception.