New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Monday clarified that the delays in GST compensation to some states occurred due to the lack of AG’s authenticated certificate. She added that Kerala did not provide even a single of this ceritificate since 2017-2018.

The finance minister claimed that an amount of Rs 86,912 crore was released for GST  compensation, which was payable to all states till May 31, 2022. The minister further pointed out that the compensation is being released by the committee and not the Centre.

Her ansewer came in response to a supplementary question in the Parliament. She said, “AG’s certification is (mandatory) by law between the Centre, states and the AG, and it is an agreed process.”

“If between them there is a problem, the authentication certificate gets delayed in reaching the Central government,” she added.

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In her reply, Nirmala Sitharaman asked the state governments to be a little more “efficient” as the compensation cannot be granted with the AG as per the law.

“The state governments have to, pardon me for using the word, be efficient to sort out things with the AG. But without AG certificate, beyond certain limits, it is very difficult for me to go,” she insisted.

The finance minister came down heavily on the Kerala ruling government, She underlined that since the GST was induced, the state government of Kerala has not provided a single AG certificate from FY18 – FY21.

She said despite ‘not providing the AG certificate,’ the central government was constantly accused of not releasing the funds. The minister further addressed Kerala MP N K Premchandran who asked the supplimentary question and asked him to request the state government to do the needful and provide the certificate.

The union minister further informed that Tamil Nadu had provided the certificate on time for FY18 and also recieved the funds. She added that the AG’s certified figure of around Rs 4,223 crore for FY21 has been processed, which will be cleared out soon, despite that there are few disputes, she added.

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