BENGALURU: On day one of GST, shops largely remained open in Bengaluru. There weren’t any cases of closure due to uncertainty over the new tax regime. While some eateries started complying with GST and were levying the new rates, a few gave excuses that they still have two months to comply with the regime, though some of them did not even have GSTIN (GST Identification Number).
Some supermarkets and restaurants continued to levy VAT and just told off customers who demanded to be charged GST. Their plea was that their software wasn’t ready for GST or that they hadn’t received the final GSTIN.
Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, a popular restaurant chain, Corner House, a popular ice cream parlour chain and the Mast Kalandar restaurants were a few eateries that levied GST on Saturday.
However, the public sector Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation, which has the highest number of Volvo buses operated by a public transport company in the country, continued to burden commuters with a 6 per cent service tax in its AC buses as against 5 per cent GST.
Drug shortage
Bengaluru experienced a shortage of drugs on day one of the GST rollout. Medications for BP and diabetes went not available in several few places in the city thanks to the tax revision process. It will take another week to resume to normalcy, pharmacists said.
Wholesale drug sellers have stopped billing and hence there were supplies to retail pharmacists.