The E-way bill mechanism under goods and service tax for inter-state movement of goods came into force today, the day Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the government’s last full Union Budget.
The GST E-way bill is an electronic documentation system that tracks inter-state movements of goods. Possession of such bills for transportation of goods between states is going to get mandatory today onwards.
E-way bills were introduced in the GST framework to prevent tax evasion and underreporting of transaction values. Their implementation was delayed as the government wanted to wait for GST to be stabilized before new enforcement mechanisms could be introduced.
The GST council had announced a 14-day trial period starting 16 January for registration of taxpayers and to gauge their response to the new system. Within this fortnight itself over 28.4 lakh e-way bills were generated, which indicates a large amount of acceptance of the new system among registered traders.
Under GST laws, interstate transportation of goods worth Rs. 50,000 and above beyond 10 kilometers will mandatorily require the generation of e-way bills. The government’s e-way bill system, designed by National Informatics Centre, is capable of handling 50 lakh inter-state and intra-state bills per day.