March GST Collection Falls To Rs 97,597 Crore Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

Goods and Services Tax collections in March 2020 fell 7.37 per cent to Rs 97,597 from Rs 1.05 lakh crore in February, government data showed on Wednesday. GST collections fell below Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for the first time since October 2019. Analysts say that GST collections have been impacted due to outbreak of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown to contain the spread of the pandemic. The CGST or central GST came in at Rs 19,183 crore, state GST or SGST was Rs 25,601 crore, integrated or IGST was Rs 44,508 crore (including Rs 18,056 crore collected on imports) and cess was Rs. 8,306 crore (including Rs 841 crore collected on imports), Ministry of Finance said in a press release.

"The government settled Rs 19,718 crore to CGST and Rs 14,915 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. In addition, centre also apportioned unsettled balance IGST of Rs. 6000 crores on ad-hoc basis in the ratio of 50:50 between centre and States/UTs.

The total revenue earned by Central Government and the State Governments after regular settlement in the month of March, 2020 was Rs 41,901 crore for CGST and Rs 43,516 crore for the SGST, finance ministry's release said.

"For the full financial year, 2019-20, the GST for domestic transaction has shown a growth rate of 8 per cent over the revenues during last year."

During the year, GST from import on goods fell down by 8 per cent as compared to last year. Overall, gross GST revenues grew at 4 per cent over the last year's GST revenue," the ministry's release added.