Solan: Giving relief to industrial units availing benefits of the residual period of the Central incentives, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has issued a draft notification of a new scheme promising budgetary support under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to such manufacturing units.
The announcement of this scheme has been welcomed by the industry which was awaiting announcement of such a relief after the introduction of the GST from July 1. The scheme has been specially announced for the states like Himachal, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir and north eastern states where the Central industrial package was being availed by the manufacturing units. Since this package was available till 2020, this scheme has been floated to enable such units to avail the financial incentives.
As per the draft notification, the Centre will find budgetary support to the eligible units for the residual period by way of refund of the GST, limited to the share of Central-GST or integrated-GST retained after devolution to the states.
While the Centre will refund 58 per cent share of the central incentives, the state will have to bear the remaining 42 per cent, which was based on the share of devolution of central taxes to the state.
The budgetary support provided under this scheme shall only apply to those eligible units which were already availing exemption or refund benefits of the Central industrial package. In order to avail the benefit, the eligible unit shall first utilise input tax credit of central tax and integrated tax and balance of liability shall be paid in cash.
The refund would be made in a time-bound manner by the 7th of every month preceding the month in which the refund has been applied for. A budgetary allocation will be made from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the processing of refund application will be made after the C-GST and I-GST has been made by the unit. The DIPP will also obtain a list of budgetary support disbursed to the eligible units.