Khattar govt 'soft-pedalling' CST issue: Congress

Congress today accused the BJP Government in Haryana of "soft-pedalling" the issue of Central Sales Tax compensation.
Haryana is among the states with the largest CST compensation running into Rs 4,000 crore due from the Centre. The Khattar Government is not pressing the issue, Senior Congress leader Kiran Choudhry said.
"The CST compensation should be given to Haryana up to the time GST is rolled out, as was promised when the entire exercise began. The Centre had agreed at the last meeting of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers in July to settle the CST compensation issue.
"But unfortunately, that has not happened and the state government has failed to press the issue at the meeting in New Delhi last week," the Haryana Congress Legislature party leader said in a statement here.

On the issue of compensation on account of foodgrains, she said that Haryana netted about Rs 1,000 crore per annum on account of the levy of purchase tax/VAT on foodgrains.
"But the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime proposes to subsume levy on foodgrains. The stand I hammered hard (earlier as Haryana's Excise and Taxation Minister) was that either the foodgrains should be kept out of the purview of GST or Haryana should be compensated on a permanent basis for the loss of revenue incurred on account of the tax being not levied.
"I wish the state Finance Minister (Capt Abhimanyu) had strongly taken up the issue at the last meeting (of the state FMs at Delhi)," she said.