As many as 21 states, mostly ruled by the BJP or parties which have supported it on various issues, have opted to borrow Rs 97,000 crore to meet the GST revenue shortfall in the current fiscal, sources said on Sunday.

The states and Union Territories (UTs) which have intimated their decision to the Centre are Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Puducherry, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

Finance ministry sources said Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharashtra, Delhi, Punjab,
Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Bengal are yet to respond to the GST Council proposal to decide their options.

The states which do not submit their borrowing options before the GST Council meet on October 5, 2020 will have to wait till June 2022 to get their compensation dues, subject to the condition that the GST Council extends the cess collection period beyond 2022, the sources said.

The GST Council needs only 20 states to pass any resolution, in case voting is required on any issue, the sources added.

In the current fiscal, the states are staring at a staggering Rs 2.35 lakh crore GST revenue shortfall. Of this, according to the Centre’s calculation, a shortfall of about Rs 97,000 crore is on account of GST implementation and the rest Rs 1.38 lakh crore is due to the impact of Covid-19 on states’ revenues.

The Centre has given two options to the states — to borrow either Rs 97,000 crore from a special window facilitated by the RBI or Rs 2.35 lakh crore from the market.