STATES COMPLICATE WITH GST REGISTRATION.

When the GST registration window opens on June 1, Molu Ram, a Mother Dairy milk vend operator, may be among those who seek registration. Like the ex-serviceman, there will be a few thousand other Safal and Mother Dairy booth operators who need to register.

"Most of our products such as fruits, vegetables and milk will beexempted from GST but all our booths will have to be fully compliant since some products like ice cream and edible oil will be in the net," said Mother Dairy CFO Meghnad Mitra.

Clearly, most booth operators, a large part being ex-servicemen, are not in a position to comply with the electronic registration and filing requirements that will come with GST. So, Mother Dairy is creating a panel of 5-6 consultants to help them. But GST compliance will come at a cost - between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000 each - with the company yet to decide who will foot the bill.

Luckily for Mother Dairy, a bulk of the registration requirement will be limited to Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh since its booths operate in the National Capital Region. For the railways, the registration requirement will be in every state since its stations sell tickets to passengers and transport goods.

Individual railway zones will also have to register in each state through which their trains pass. If Northern Railways runs a train from, say, Delhi to Mumbai, it will need registration in Ma harashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh as well as Delhi since it will sell tickets in each state, explained tax lawyer RS Sharma.

The same will apply to a bus that runs from Delhi to Jammu, boarding passengers in Delhi, Karnal and Chandigarh, and also from Jammu on the return journey. "If there is centralised ticketing there is no need for separate registration in each state," explained an officer. For the bus operator there is the additional complication of getting a tax credit from the Jammu and Kashmir government, which is yet to enact a GST law.