Punjab suffered 1.11 lakh cr loss after GST implementation, says FM Cheema

Chandigarh, Sep 29 (PTI) Punjab incurred a loss of Rs 1.11 lakh crore in the past eight years following the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST), Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said on Monday.

Cheema was speaking in the House on the concluding day of the state Assembly session on the Punjab Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2025.

Highlighting the adverse impact on Punjab, Cheema said the state's pre-GST revenue neutral rate was 18.3 per cent, significantly higher than the country's average rate of 14 per cent.

Following GST implementation, Punjab incurred a loss of 1.11 lakh crore over eight years, while only receiving 61,000 crores from compensation tax.

The minister pointed out that many other states are also grappling with revenue losses due to GST, but are not being heard by the central government due to the BJP's majority.

The finance minister further asserted that the Congress party should have considered the potential for state losses when they first proposed GST, stating that productive states like Punjab are bearing the brunt because GST is a consumer-based tax.

Cheema said he made repeated appeals to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman not to "destabilize" the economies of the states.

If the federal structure is compromised, states would be reduced to the status of municipal committees, subservient to the Centre, he claimed.

Cheema accused the BJP-led Centre of "systematically undermining" the Constitution, citing policies like 'One Nation One Tax' and 'One Nation One Election' as "destructive" to the federal structure.

He also addressed concerns raised by Leader of the Opposition Pratap Singh Bajwa regarding the GST system, referring to an article by former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

Cheema recalled that the proposal for GST was originally brought forward by Chidambaram himself in 2006, but was not implemented by the then UPA government due to opposition.

He said the BJP-led NDA government later advanced the concept on the principle of 'One-Nation One-Tax,' which the then Punjab Finance Minister, Manpreet Singh Badal, had agreed to in Delhi.

At that time, the Union government had promised the compensation cess would continue until states' economies stabilised, but this cess was discontinued after the year 2022, informed Cheema.

Speaking on the Punjab Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2025, Cheema said the legislation proposes to amend several sections of the Punjab Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, including sections 2, 12, 13, 17, 20, 34, 38, 39, 107, 112, and Schedule III, while also inserting new sections 122A and 148A.

These amendments are aimed at ensuring uniformity with the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, as recently amended by the Finance Act, 2025.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Assembly passed six bills, including the Seeds (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2025, aimed to make the sale of spurious seeds a non-bailable offence.

To streamline the development works in cities, the House passed the Punjab Town Improvement (Amendment) Bill, 2025.

Presenting the bill, the Local Government Minister, Dr Ravjot Singh, said the motive of this bill was to enable the urban local bodies of the state to utilise funds available with the Improvement Trusts.

The minister said the Bill aimed at upgrading municipal infrastructure and improving management of civic services for residents of municipal towns in the State through optimal utilisation of resources of Improvement Trusts.

Besides, other bills which have been passed were the Punjab Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2025; the Punjab Right to Business (Amendment) Bill, 2025; the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2025; and the Punjab Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2025. PTI CHS MR