02 December 2009
No TDS is only for carriage of goods by road. If you are paying the barge owner per ton to carry goods from point A to point B, you have to deduct tds u/s 194C. If you rent the barge and also a tug to pull it for both of them you have to deduct u/s 194I. In your case most likely the barge owner will give you the service of carriage of goods and he well hire the tug or possibly he owns it himself. However please elaborate if the owner of the barge or the person with whom you are contracting is non-resident. Normally you load the barges and they are loaded into very large main line vessels. These mainline vessels unload at main ports abroad and then the barges are tugged through internal waterways to inland destinations.