Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said any pending dues of compensation of Goods and Services Tax of states will be cleared as soon as the state accountant general certified claim would come.

“…if the states have not sent us accountant general approved statement … If there is a delay in the accountant general certified claims from a state, obviously that will be still pending,” the minister said in Lok Sabha during Question Hour.

Sitharaman said if the accountant general has not cleared the claims of states or it is pending, they should expedite that. “I am willing to clear it the moment I get it,” she said.Stressing that the Centre is committed to providing compensation to states for the agreed five-year period till June 2022, the minister said nearly half the compensation for June has been paid. “If I were to go by month, how much is pending, the last month was June 2022 till when the compensation had to be given, and of the June amount, nearly half of it is already paid,” she said.

For the balance, the Centre is waiting for collection to happen as it has to be given from the Compensation cess collected which goes into a public account from where they are given. “But otherwise, there is nothing that is pending for me to give. All that has been collected has been disbursed,” she stressed.

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The Centre had, in November, this year released Rs 17,000 crore to states and Union territories as the balance compensation for goods and services tax for the period April to June 2022, taking the total compensation provided during the year 2022-23 to Rs 1.15 trillion. The issue of compensation is, however, very contentious and many states have noted that a part of the compensation is still pending.

Responding to a question by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, who asked if Rs 3,251.53 crore for the years 2021–22 and 2022–23 is yet to be released for Odisha as GST compensation, Sitharaman said as of June, the provisional figure of pending compensation for Odisha is Rs 528.95 crore.

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In response to a supplementary question by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on the dues pending for Kerala, she said as of June, it is Rs 780.49 crore only. In response to another question on GST collection and compensation for Madhya Pradesh, the minister said Rs 729.64 crore is due to the state toward GST compensation for period April-June, 2022.

As per section 18 of the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, Parliament shall, by law, on the recommendation of the GST Council, provide for compensation to the states for loss of revenue arising on account of implementation of the indirect tax regime for a period of five years. Revenues of states are protected at 14% growth rate per annum over the base year revenue of 2015-16.