Under pressure from several states that have complained about large scale sales tax evasion on commercial goods transported through parcel vans, the railways now plan to allow state governments to set up sales tax inspection counters at parcel offices in stations across the country.
However, the Rail Bhavan is worried that the setting up of such counters may lead to harassment of customers who come to book parcels.
According to an official, some states, including Delhi, Maharashtra and Gujarat had complained that goods meant for sale were being booked on parcel vans for which sales tax was not paid.
The ministry says the state sales tax departments have exaggerated the proportion of losses suffered.
"Most of the goods booked through parcel vans are personal possessions of passengers and the share of commercial goods transported by passenger trains would be only a fraction of the
load carried by trucks. This kind of a measure by the sales tax departments may lead to harassment of railway passengers, who book their luggage on parcel vans," an official said.
"We can give them space for setting up the counters. But they will have to pay the railways if any infrastructure facilities at stations is used by the states," the official added.
Rail Bhavan is averse to a policy decision on the issue, which would be binding on all its zones and has instead empowered general managers of the 16 railway zones to facilitate the setting up of such counters.
The sales tax departments had also demanded that sales tax check points be set up at border railway stations.
Although the railways have given their acceptance, they are worried that this might lead to jurisdictional issues as under the railway network, borders are demarcated on the basis of zones and not states.
