The Centre has released Rs 81,043 crore as compensation to states for April-September 2019, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur said on Tuesday.

In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, he said compensation cess collection has shown upward trend since October 2019.

compensation cess of Rs 7,607 crore was collected in October, Rs 7,727 crore in November, Rs 8,331 crore in December and Rs 8,637 crore in January.

For 2019-20, the amount targeted to be collected from cess in GST was Rs 1.09 lakh crore. Of this, Rs 70,534 crore has been collected between April-December 2019.

The amount of GST compensation released to states for April-September 2019 stood at Rs 81,043 crore, Thakur said.

For 2018-19 fiscal, the net collection of GST compensation cess stood at Rs 95,081 crore as against the target of Rs 90,000 crore. For full fiscal, the government had released Rs 81,141 crore to states as compensation.

For 2017-18, the net collection from cess stood at Rs 62,612 crore, as against the target of Rs 61,331 crore. The compensation amount released to states was Rs 48,785 crore.

Under GST law, states were guaranteed to be paid for any loss of revenue in the first five years of GST implementation, which came into force on July 1, 2017.

The shortfall is calculated assuming a 14 per cent annual growth in by states over the base year of 2015-16.

"For providing such compensation to states, compensation cess is being levied on certain luxury and demerit goods as per provisions in Section 8 of the GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017, and compensation cess is being credited into a non-lapsable Fund known as Goods and Services Tax Compensation Fund which forms part of the Public Account of India," Thakur said.