Advertisment

E-way bill system on its way, says Govt

author-image
DQW Bureau
New Update
E-way bill system on its way, says Govt

The GST provision, requiring any good more than Rs 50,000 in value to be pre-registered online before it can be moved, is likely to kick in from October after a centralised software platform is ready, a top official said.

Advertisment

The provision, called the e-way bill, would be implemented after infrastructure for smooth generation of registration and its verification through hand-held devices with tax officials is ready.

The information technology platform for the e-way bill system is being developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) along with GST-Network -- the company which has developed the IT backbone for the new indirect tax regime.

The Centre has also decided to relax the timeline provision under which the e-way bill generated by GSTN for 20 days for goods travelling more than 1,000 km. Earlier, this was 15 days.

Advertisment

As per the provision, GSTN would generate e-way bills that will be valid for 1-20 days, depending on distance to be travelled -- one day for 100 km, 3 days (100 to less than 300 km), 5 days (300-less than 500 km) and 10 days (500-less than 1,000 km).

GST Goods and Services Tax xThe GST Commissioner may extend the validity period of e-way bill for certain categories of goods.

"We hope the e-way bill can be implemented in three months time as by then, we hope to develop the infrastructure for consolidated e-way bill," a top official said.

Advertisment

Although the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been rolled out from July 1, a centralised e-way bill could not be implemented as the rules and forms were not ready.

"The e-way bill rules may be taken up in the next meeting of the GST Council on August 5. After the rules are in place, the NIC and GSTN would develop an all India platform for a consolidated system," another official said.

Originally, GSTN was to develop the e-way bill platform, but last month only the GST Council decided to rope in NIC to develop it since it was felt that in the initial days of GST roll out, GSTN would be busy with other works like solving issues like registration and invoice generation.

Advertisment