The Delhi Government has come down heavily on traders and transporters who bring undeclared goods to the national Capital from other States with over Rs 3.9 crore being realised as penalty in the last month for such activities.
In December 2015, the Department of Trade and Taxes is said to have detected 783 vehicles which entered the city without declaring beforehand the nature and value of goods being brought by filing the Delhi Sugam-2 (DS-2) form.
In a statement, the Trade and Taxes Department said a penalty of Rs 50,000 each, amounting to a total of about Rs 3.91 crore, was imposed upon the dealer and transporter of the 783 vehicles. Vat Commissioner S S Yadav said in December last year more than 10,000 vehicles were checked by the teams of the department and 250 vehicles carrying goods without any supporting documents were detected and consequently detained.
The statement said the valuation of goods in the detained vehicles was done and penalty as per the law was imposed. “The vehicles were released after realisation of tax and penalty. An amount of Rs 2 crore has been realised from such vehicles in the last one month only.” The impounded vehicles were found carrying a variety of goods with majority of them carrying readymade garments, grocery items and electronics.
In the last three months, the department has reportedly detained 539 vehicles carrying goods without documents and realised tax and penalty of more than Rs 3 crore from them. Besides those, in the last three months, 1,901 vehicles were detected bringing goods to Delhi without filing the mandatory DS-2 form beforehand. DS-2 forms can be filled online and are used to declare beforehand the kind of goods being brought to the city and the vehicle being used.
The officer said by catching the vehicles bringing undeclared goods to Delhi, the department has foiled the attempts of traders who evade VAT by selling such goods illegally in Delhi. As per Delhi Value Added Tax Act 2004 and the rules made there under, any vehicle carrying goods must carry supporting documents.
Besides this, the traders bringing goods from outside Delhi also need to inform the department about the nature of goods, their value, likely date of entry of goods in Delhi and registration number of the vehicle carrying the goods before the goods enter Delhi.
In order to prevent bringing of undeclared goods to Delhi, the department has been deploying teams at the entry points of the city, railway stations, major markets and other places across the national Capital. It has now installed automatic number plate reading cameras at two entry points to Delhi and would be installed at the remaining entry points within next few weeks. These cameras capture the registration number of each vehicle entering Delhi automatically and transmit that data to the server of the department.
The officer said, “This enables the department to identify each violating transporter and take penal action under the DVAT Act 2004.