Chief Minister Conrad Sangma will attend the GST Council meeting in New Delhi tomorrow.
The 54th GST Council meeting which will be chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will deliberate on a slew of issues, including rate rationalisation, taxation of health insurance premiums, online gaming, GST slabs and more.
However, it is unclear if Sangma will raise his objections with Sitharaman on the data of the Finance Ministry that Meghalaya’s GST collections dropped from Rs 239 crore in fiscal 2022-23 to Rs 234 crore during 2023-24.
It was also reported that Meghalaya was one of the worst performing states in terms of GST collection for August 2024, with the figure for last month being 18 per cent lower than August 2023.
The State Finance Department in a statement issued yesterday said that the GST collections in the State have grown up from Rs. 1118 crore in 2021-22 to Rs. 1723 crore in 2023-24.
The department stated that the dip in GST collections of the State is only based on one month data (April 2024) of returns filed and doesn’t take into account all the settlements.
“The overall GST collections of the State, including State GST, Integrated GST and Central GST, clearly show an increasing trend. Meghalaya GST collections have registered a growth rate of 35.87 per cent, 32.12 per cent and 16.66 per cent during 2021-22, 22-23 and 23-24 respectively,” the department stated.
“The total GST receipt from April-August, 2024 for Meghalaya is Rs 772 crore. The receipt for the same period in 2023 was Rs 737 crore indicating an increase of 5 per cent in the receipts. The growth rate for other states in the North East are – Assam 7 per cent, Arunachal Pradesh 8 per cent, Manipur 11 per cent, Mizoram 1 per cent, Nagaland 0 per cent, Sikkim 16 per cent and Tripura 11 per cent,” the department added.
The Finance Department also said that Meghalaya receives its share of GST daily through cash ledger and monthly in the form of Integrated GST and ITC settlement.
GST comprises three components, State GST, Central GST and Integrated GST (IGST).
