new delhi alarmed by a nearly fourfold rise in gst compensation to states for junejuly the finance ministry is crafting a strategy to shore up tax revenues and engaging with states to identify issues hindering their collectionsfinance secretary hasmukh adhia has started meeting with gst officers both from central and state tax departments in the state capitals to understand issues plaguing the gst collectionsthere has been a spike in the bimonthly gst compensation paid to the states by the centrethe centre paid rs 14930 crore to compensate states for revenue loss incurred in june and july a nearly fourfold jump compared to rs 3899 crore paid for the months of april and maya strategy is to be devised to shore up gst revenues the amount of compensation to be paid to each state varies every month and there is no set pattern an official told ptithe reason for increased compensation also varied from state to state for instance in one of the cases a state saw a huge outgo on account of vat refund following a court verdict the official addeda discussion to shore up revenues has already happened with four states punjab himachal pradesh puducherry and jammu kashmir while a dialogue with bihar and uttarakhand is slated to take place later this monththe official said that one of the options being considered is stepping up antievasion measures with a focus on top 30 taxpayers but added that the centre will ensure that the fix to the problem will not be intrusive on businessesdata analytics will be put to use to examine the profile of top 30 taxpayers to study their tax payment pre and post gst implementation the official addedthe finance ministry has targeted monthly gst collections to be rs 1 lakh crore for this fiscal but the actual mop up has fallen short of the target month after month the sole exception was the month of april in which the numbers exceeded rs 1 lakh crorethe collections stood at rs 94016 crore in may rs 95610 crore in june rs 96483 crore in july and rs 93960 crore in augustthe centre had agreed to compensate the states for revenue loss on account of gst implementation for a period of five yearsthe loss of revenue to a state is calculated based on the difference between the actual realisation to a state under gst regime and the tax revenue it would have got under the old indirect tax regime after considering a 14 per cent increase over the base year of 201516in 201718 the centre had released rs 41147 crore to the states as gst compensation to ensure that the revenue of the states is protected at the level of 14 per cent over the base year tax collection in 201516the revenue gap of each state is coming down since july and the average revenue gap of all states for last financial year was around 17 per cent according to the finance ministryunder gst a cess is levied on