Chennai: With the Goods and services tax (GST) collections witnessing an increase in June with the mop-up of Rs 90,917 crore, as against Rs 62,009 crore in May and just Rs 32,294 crore in April, being viewed as signs of economic recovery, industry body Consortium of Indian Associations (CIA) has said it is dsappointed that tax collection is less than expected in June.
According to K E Raghunathan, convenor of CIA, “Don’t be carried away with June GST collections. Actually we are disappointed that the collection is less than expected. When we closed on lockdown on 25 March, all the MSME units had orders to be completed during the last week of March (year end).”
“We all went out of functional till May end, mostly. In June except prominent metro cities, all other units functioned. Actually the GST collection in June should have been atleast Rs1,75,000 crore as we had last nearly 65 days of invoicing.”
He added that the factual impact of Covid will be known only from August as many units will execute orders under execution in June and July .
“Unless fresh orders come, August functional will be worst. CIA expects the worst will be felt during August to December as demand will be very low,” he said and added: “Financial outflow especially due to moratorium interest payments will be high. Rainy season will impact site activities and festival season holidays will be more.”