Increasing the risk of fiscal slippage at a time when demand continued to remain weak, collections from India’s nationwide goods and services tax (GST) fell to a 19-month low in September.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection in September declined to Rs 91,916 crore, as against Rs 98,202 crore in the preceding month, as per government data released on Tuesday.

The revenue collection in the same month a year ago stood at Rs 94,442 crore.

"The total gross GST revenue collected in the month of September, 2019 is Rs 91,916 crore of which CGST is Rs 16,630 crore, SGST is Rs 22,598 crore, IGST is Rs 45,069 crore (including Rs 22,097 crore collected on imports) and cess is Rs 7,620 crore (including Rs 728 crore collected on imports)," the Finance Ministry said in a release.

It further said the total number of GSTR 3B returns (summary of self-assessed return) filed for the month of August (up to September 30) was 75.94 lakh.

The revenue during September declined by 2.67 per cent in comparison to the revenue collected in the same month a year ago, the release said.

During April-September, the domestic component has grown by 7.82 per cent, while the GST on imports has shown negative growth and the total collection has grown by 4.90 per cent, it added.

The lower collection will further exacerbate the risk of the country slipping from its fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of gross domestic product in 2019/20, especially after government tax revenue for the current fiscal year was reduced by 1.45 lakh crore rupees due to cuts in corporate tax rates.

The government's direct tax collections growth since the beginning of the current fiscal stands at 6 per cent so far, below the required growth rate of 17 per cent.

Lower tax collections reflect relatively weak economic growth, which fell to a six-year low of 5 per cent in the April-June period.

On Monday, the government released India's infrastructure output data which showed contraction for the first time since 2015, signalling a tepid recovery in the July-September quarter and enhancing the chances of further interest rate reduction by the Reserve Bank of India later this week.

(With inputs from PTI and Reuters.)

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