About1.85 lakh dealers out of the 3.53 lakh registered with the VAT department have enrolled on the GST portal from December 16 till date. The Delhi government is now preparing to bring out an advertisement to announce extension of the deadline for enrolment till March 15. The earlier deadline was December 31.

The state government is clear that those who do not register by the extended deadline will not be considered for any of the tax payment related benefits given to dealers by the VAT department from thereon.

During enrollment, the VAT department found that in around 50,000 cases dealers could not complete their applications as their PAN card details did not match the ones registered with them. "For instance, the PAN may have the company name written in abbreviation and the VAT data has the full name. This difference appears as a mismatch and the dealers have been asked to get this rectified," said VAT commissioner H Rajesh Prasad.

The dealers who choose not to get enrolled on the GST portal will come under the scanner of the VAT department which plans to begin the exercise of pruning the list of registered dealers for weeding out any possibility of bogus dealers or those whose registration may have been cancelled.

Before this process started on December 16, a workshop to help dealers in migrating to GST was held at the Delhi Secretariat. Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and senior VAT department officials were present.

The GST portal seeks to empower the dealers with a complete online experience with no manual interface. From uploading of bills and filing of returns to tax payment, the entire process will be online. Once GST comes into effect, VAT will cease to exist except in the case of liquor and five petroleum products, including diesel and petrol. Luxury tax and entertainment tax will be merged under GST. The excise on liquor will continue, along with VAT, even after GST rollout.#casansaar (Times of India)