GSTN to ensure stakeholder familiarity before reintroducing e-way bill

GSTN to ensure stakeholder familiarity before reintroducing e-way bill

GST Network Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey has said the company will try to ensure that stakeholders become fully familiar with the technology system before the re-rollout of the e-way bill system.

Under the Goods and Services and Tax, which was rolled out from July 1 last year, transporters of goods worth more than Rs 50,000 are required to carry electronic or e-way bill. The e-way bill system was launched by GSTN on February 1 after conducting pilot for over a fortnight, but faced technical glitches following which its implementation had to be postponed. In an interview to PTI, Pandey said GSTN is conducting extended pilot for the e-way bill mechanism and has suggested to states that they should ask their transporters to undertake trial run for e-way bill generation on the portal.

"As soon as there is a readiness of the system and stakeholders, we will roll it out. We are trying to do it as early as possible in such a way that from the system point of view we should also be able to handle the load and stakeholders should also be fully acquainted," Pandey said. The GST provision requiring transporters to carry an e-way bill when moving goods between states is intended to check tax evasion. Pandey said:

"Decision has been taken to extend this pilot by few weeks and then at appropriate time, when we feel that the interaction between GSTN and stakeholders have become stable, we will be able to notify this. "Movement of goods is essential, it is lifeline, and therefore e-way bill has to be appropriately dealt with so that people do not have difficulty." After the system faced technical glitch on roll out day on February 1, the finance ministry had asked the GSTN to ensure full readiness before re-introducing the e-way bill. Goods and Services Tax (GST), which subsumed over a dozen local taxes, was implemented from July 1, 2017.

However, implementation of e-way bill system was postponed as IT system was not prepared. The government is banking on e-way bill mechanism to act as an anti-evasion tool which will help garner more revenues to the exchequer as end use of goods would be monitored. Transporters, who want to generate e-way bill, can visit the 'ewaybill.nic.in' portal and register themselves by giving the GSTIN. Those who are not registered under GST can enrol themselves under e-way bill system by providing their PAN or Aadhaar to generate the e-way bill.

E-way bill will bring uniformity across the states for seamless inter-state movement of goods. The all-powerful GST Council had on December 16, 2017, decided to implement the e-way bill mechanism for intra-state movement of goods from June 1 and from February 1 for inter- state movement.

The Business Standard, New Delhi, 15th February  2018