Emphasising Punjab’s loss, he said, “In all three meetings of the GST Group of Ministers, I placed Punjab’s position. So far Punjab has lost Rs 1,11,045 crore. Punjab suffered heavy damage after the GST system was introduced. Out of this, the central government has given Rs 60,000 crore in compensation, but still Rs 50,000 crore remains with the central government. Who will pay this money?””Since GST was introduced, the BJP’s central government has kept making one amendment after another, but never reached a conclusion. Taxpayers of the country are being harassed continuously. The system of the country is being destroyed. Several states are continuously losing revenue due to the GST system. The central government has backed away from making up for this loss,” he added.Detailing the latest discussions, Cheema said, “In Thursday’s meeting on compensation cess, the government said that the loans taken to pay states under compensation cess would be fully repaid by October. On harmful goods (sin goods), a special tax was imposed. The states suffering losses in its collection were being compensated. But now the report of the rate rationalisation committee shows that even the tax slab on sin goods is being reduced.”On revenue withheld, he shared, “Punjab has suffered a loss of Rs 50,000 crore in revenue. Who will compensate for this? Will the central government make up for this loss? In addition, the central government has withheld more than Rs 8,000 crore of Punjab’s RDF. Two days ago, another Rs 1,000 crore under the Prime Minister Road Scheme was also stopped. In this way, nearly Rs 60,000 crore is pending with the central government against Punjab. This includes the Rs 50,000 crore revenue loss after GST. The central government must immediately release Rs 60,000 crore.”He asserted that if Punjab had not joined the One Nation-One Tax scheme, it would have received much more revenue. We honoured the central government’s decision and stood with the country, but Punjab suffered for it. Along with Punjab, many other states also suffered.Cheema said, “After GST was implemented, the central government had said that states would receive 14 per cent growth compensation under the compensation cess. Punjab’s total revenue was Rs 2,37,530 crore. But under GST, Punjab received only Rs 1,26,485 crore. Thus Punjab has lost Rs 1,11,045 crore. Out of this, the central government gave only Rs 60,000 crore, and over Rs 50,000 crore is still with them.”
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