The Centre collected a gross Goods and Services Tax revenue of Rs 1,10,828 crore in January, the Union Ministry of Finance said on Friday. This is the second time since the rollout of the new tax regime in 2017 that the government’s GST overall collection crossed Rs 1.1 lakh crore – the first time was in April 2019 when it was Rs 1.13 crore.

This is the sixth time that the monthly GST revenue has topped Rs 1 lakh crore. Of the total amount collected in January, central GST was Rs 20,944 crore, state GST was Rs 28,224 crore, integrated GST was Rs 53,013 crore and cess Rs 8,637 crore.

“The GST revenues during the month of January 2020 from domestic transactions has shown an impressive growth of 12% over the revenue during the month of January 2019,” the government said. The GST collection stood at Rs 1.02 lakh crore in January 2019.

The November, December and January figures showed a recovery in GST collections, which had fallen for three months in a row prior to that. The September collection was Rs 91,916 crore, the lowest since February 2018. In November 2019, the GST collections were at Rs 1,03,492 crore and that in December was Rs 1,03,184 crore.

The government has a target of collecting about Rs 3.5 lakh crore in gross GST from January to March 2020. For February, the government has set an ambitious target of Rs 1.1 lakh crore monthly GST revenue while for March it is Rs 1.25 lakh crore, according to Hindustan Times.

On December 7 last year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Centre could not pay pending compensation to states under the Goods and Services Tax regime because the collection was not adequate. However, she assured that the government’s compact with the states will be honoured. On December 16, the Centre released Rs 35,298 crore for states and Union Territories as compensation for the GST framework, just two days before the GST Council meeting.