In re Roorkee Cold Storage (P) Ltd (GST AAR Uttarakhand)
On perusal of legal provisions (supra), we find that loading, unloading, packing, storage or warehousing of agricultural produce is exempted from GST. We also find that Agricultural produce in the notifications has been defined to mean “any produce out of cultivation of plants and rearing of all life forms of animals, except the rearing of horses, for food, fibre, fuel, raw material or other similar products, on which either no further processing is done or such processing is done as is usually done by a cultivator or producer which does not alter its essential characteristics but makes it marketable for primary market”. In light of the aforesaid definition any product in order to become an agricultural produce have the following criteria :-
(i) Any produce out of cultivation of plants and rearing of all life forms of animals;
(ii) Such produce does not require any further processing and if any processing shall be carried by producer or cultivator then said processing does not alter the essential characteristics of such produce;
(iii) the requirement of such initial processing is essential to make the produce marketable at the primary stage of marketing.
We further find that in terms of circular dated 15.11.2017, the storage/warehousing of goods viz pulses, jaggery, etc were taxable but with the introduction of entry 24B in the Exemption Notification No. 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate) dated 28.06.2017 (as amended from time to time), storage/warehousing of pulses, jiggery, fruits, nuts & vegetables are exempted from GST w.e.f 01.10.2019.
From the record, we find that the applicant is engaged in rendering services by way of providing storage/warehousing facilities to variety of goods and in terms of legal provisions (supra), the applicability of GST in respect of said goods is as under:
