PANJIM: Goa has been allowed further borrowing of Rs 446 crore even as the Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure released the 17th weekly installment of Rs 5,000 crore to the States on Saturday to meet the GST compensation shortfall.
The amount has been borrowed this week at an interest rate of 5.5924 per cent.
It may be recalled that Goa was allowed to borrow an identical amount last Monday when the Centre had released Rs 5,000 crore in the 16th weekly installment, to the States.
The Centre also announced that with this latest installment, the overall GST compensation shortfall released to States has reached Rs 1 lakh crore.
Till now, 91 per cent of the total estimated GST compensation shortfall has been released to the States and Union Territories with Legislative Assembly. Out of this, an amount of Rs 91,460.34 crore has been released to the States and an amount of Rs 8,539.66 crore has been released to the three Union Territories with Legislative Assembly.
The amount has been borrowed this week at an interest rate of 5.5924 per cent.
As far as Goa is concerned, the amount of funds raised through special window and released to the State is Rs 807.89 crore. It may be recalled that after the 16th weekly installment, this figure was Rs 787.61 crore.
The Government of India had set up a special borrowing window in October, 2020 to meet the estimated shortfall of Rs 1.10 lakh crore in revenue arising on account of implementation of GST.
The borrowings are being done through this window by the Government of India on behalf of the States and Union Territories. 17 rounds of borrowings have been completed so far starting from October 23, 2020.
So far, an amount of Rs 1 lakh crore has been borrowed by the Central government through the special borrowing window at an average interest rate of 4.8307 per cent.
