Big Story | Will GST Council raise rates to compensate states?

States are facing pressure to agree to rationalise Goods & Service Tax (GST) rates as the Centre has told a Parliamentary panel that it may not be able to pay the compensation due to states in the near future.

This comes just after the Centre on July 27 released Rs 13,806 crore to the states for March, wrapping up the full payout for FY20 at Rs 1.65 lakh crore. However, the compensation payments for this financial year since April is pending.

States, which are incurring huge expenses to battle coronavirus, assist migrants and also those who lost jobs, have been facing a severe resource crunch and therefore have been repeatedly asking the Centre to release their pending compensation. Will the Council now increase the compensation cess or its ambit to include more goods and services? Find out in this edition of Big Story.