Ludhiana, Oct 18 (KNN) The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection was minimum to the tune of 2.69 per cent due to “bogus billing” and “under-invoicing” that led to an evasion of Rs 12,000 crore GST, claimed All-Industries’ Trade Forum's (AITF).

In this regard, Badish Jindal, AITF president, has dashed off a letter to the Prime Minister, requesting him to conduct a CBI inquiry to unearth “the scam of huge evasion of the GST”.

According to Jindal, the primary (agricultural) economy in the state is 25 per cent of the state’s GDP.

''Even if we enhance the collection by 25 per cent the data is still much below the national average. The other states such as Haryana too have 16 per cent Primary economy. Maharashtra too has a 13 per cent Primary economy. The national primary economy is 15.4% of its GDP,'' said AITF president.

He said Punjab is getting the highest percentage of GST compensation among all states which was 13 per cent of its revenue in 2018-19 and 11 per cent in 2019-20, whereas the national average of compensation was 2 per cent of total revenue in 2018-19 and 3 per cent in 2019-20.

''Punjab is having 44 per cent revenue shortfall which actually is a GST evasion in the state,'' Jindal claimed.

The AITF studied the steel manufacturing and consumption data of the state according to which, Punjab produces around 2.7 million tonnes of steel and also consumes around 2.9 million tonnes.

“So, the average collection of state from steel shall be above Rs 3,500 crore, whereas the actual collection is much below this,” he said.

Even in his Budget speech, the Finance Minister of Punjab highlighted the issue of bogus GST billing in the state. “However, no efforts were made to correct the system. Even after huge tax evasion in Ludhiana and Fatehgarh Sahib, the government didn’t bother to replace the head of the GST Department,” said Jindal.

The Central Government must intervene in Punjab and other similar states having low GST collections, Jindal concluded.