Digitalisation, GIS Mapping And IT Consultancy For Jal Jeevan Mission Are ‘Pure Services’ Exempt From GST: West Bengal AAR
Sangeetha Prathap
The West Bengal Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) has held that digitalisation, GIS mapping, monitoring, data management and technical consultancy services provided to the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) in connection with water supply schemes under the Jal Jeevan Mission qualify as “pure services” and are exempt from Goods and Services Tax (GST) under Notification No. 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate).
The ruling was delivered on an application filed by Rimita Mukherjee, an entity engaged in providing services such as digitisation of water supply schemes, GIS-based asset mapping, mobile and web application development, monitoring dashboards, data analytics and technical consultancy for piped water supply projects implemented by PHED, Government of West Bengal.
The applicant approached the Authority seeking clarity on whether services including digitisation of water infrastructure, enhancement of Jal Mitra applications, GIS mapping of assets, monitoring and reporting dashboards, field-level data acquisition and related consultancy would qualify for GST exemption as “pure services”.
The Authority examined the scope and nature of the services rendered and noted that the applicant’s activities were limited entirely to service components such as data collection, software and application development, GIS integration, analysis, reporting and monitoring. It was specifically recorded that there was no transfer of goods involved in the execution of these contracts.
The bench comprising Shafeeq S, Joint Commissioner, CGST & CX, and Jaydip Kumar Chakrabarti, Senior Joint Commissioner, SGST, observed that drinking water and sanitation are expressly included in the Eleventh Schedule to the Constitution under Article 243G, which lists functions entrusted to Panchayats. The Authority also noted that PHED is a department of the Government of West Bengal, and that the services were supplied directly to the State Government for implementation of public water supply schemes.
The Authority analysed Entry 3 of Notification No. 12/2017, which grants GST exemption to pure services provided to the Central Government, State Government or local authorities in relation to functions entrusted under Articles 243G and 243W of the Constitution. It held that for the exemption to apply, four conditions must be satisfied: the supply must be a pure service, it must not involve goods, it must be provided to the government or a local authority, and it must be in relation to constitutionally assigned functions.
Applying these principles, the Authority concluded that all four conditions stood satisfied in the present case. It held that the services rendered by the applicant were purely service-oriented, were supplied directly to a State Government department, and were intrinsically linked to drinking water and sanitation functions under the Jal Jeevan Mission.
The Authority further clarified that even proposed or future services of a similar nature—such as field data acquisition, UTWID generation platforms, hosting of WhatsApp-based applications, and GIS-enabled monitoring tools—would also qualify for exemption, provided they continue to remain service-only supplies without any element of goods. Accordingly, the West Bengal AAR ruled that the services provided by the applicant are classifiable under Entry 3 of Notification No. 12/2017 and attract nil GST, granting significant clarity on the tax treatment of technology-driven services used in public water supply and sanitation projects.
Appearance
For Applicant: Mr. Rajkumar Banerjee, Advocate and Ms. Payel Agarwal, A/R
Cause Title: Rimita Mukherjee
Case No: WBAAR 15 of 2025-26
