Chandigarh, Aug. 30 -- Finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Friday stated that the central government, under the current proposal to rationalise goods and services tax (GST) rates, should provide adequate compensation to states to prevent financial instability. Cheema said the benefits of this measure should reach the poor, who were facing inflation, rather than corporate houses. "If the current proposal for price rationalisation is implemented without a provision for compensation to cover revenue loss, it will lead to financial instability in the states and harm the country's federal structure, which is unacceptable," he said after a meeting of finance ministers and representatives of the Opposition-ruled states, including Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Kerala and Telangana, in Delhi on the GST rate rationalisation. The Punjab finance minister said, "It is the considered recommendation of the states that rate rationalisation should be supported by a robust revenue protection framework. Only such a balanced approach will protect the fiscal autonomy of states while advancing the objectives of GST reform in the true spirit of cooperative federalism." He later told reporters that all these states have strongly voiced for a mechanism of additional levy on sin and luxury goods to be imposed in order to maintain the current effective level of taxation. HTC...