The E-Way bill which was proposed to complement nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST), has got almost as much media attention as the term input tax credit in the last few months. Which after being rolled out on February 1, 2018 with much fanfare, the E-way bill has met with the same fate as some of return filings on the GST. It had to be deferred indefinitely after taxpayers complained of technical glitches that handicapped all their attempts to generate it online.
So what is E Way bill? E-way bill is nothing but a piece of information to be generated online under the GST system, when goods of the value of more than ₹50,000 are shipped interState or intraState. The E-way bill must be raised before the goods are shipped or transported and should include details of the goods, their consignor, recipient and transporter.
The person in charge of conveyance has to carry the invoice and the copy of E-way bill which is very much needed for the movement of goods. He can also carry the E-way bill number, mapped to an RFID (radio frequency identification device). Although the check-post Raj have been abolished under GST, a consignment can be intercepted at any point for the verification of its E-way bill, for all inter-State and intra-State movement of goods.
The E Way bill rules which provide the framework for movement of goods under GST regime, flexibly allows any of the parties to a transaction — the consignor or the recipient — to generate the E-way bill, provided they are registered. E way bill has to be generated irrespective of whether the goods being transported is on one’s own or hired conveyance, by air, rail or road, the E-way bill has to be generated. But in the case of goods being handed over to a transporter for conveyance by road, wherein neither the consignor nor the consignee has generated the E-way Bill then the transporter becomes liable to generate E-Way bill in all such circumstances. When a person in charge of conveyance either be an consignor or transporter generating the E-way bill, the recipient for the consignment has to give his acceptance or rejection to the Eway bill generated on the portal. And where no such action is taken by the recipient in 72 hours, it shall be taken as accepted.
The Facts which establishes that Karnataka was the first purchaser of Eway bill Concept :
- From the Press Release – adopted : It was in the press release dated 16th of December 2017 by the GST Council, for clarifications on mandatory applicability of Eway bill rules for movement of goods which read as follows : The system for both inter-State and intra-State e-way Bill generation will be ready by January 16, 2018. The States may choose their own timings for implementation of e-way Bill for intra-State movement of goods on any date before June 01, 2018. There are certain States which are already having system of e-way bill for intra-State as well as inter-State movement and some of those States can be early adopters of national e way Bill system for intra-State movement also. But in any case uniform system of e-way bill for inter-State as well as intra-State movement will be implemented across the country by 1st June, 2018.
Among the early adopters of nation wide Eway bill also included the state of Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh apart from Karnataka. So it is evident that Karnataka was the first passenger to board the Decks of Eway bill Convoy followed by Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
- From the numbers generated : The figures on number of Eway bills generated during the trail run period were across all the media which also established the fact that Karnataka was the forerunner on the track of Ewaybill race.
Here are those facts for you : In the 14-day trial period which begun from January 16, the day when nationwide e-way bill registrations for taxpayers begun, 28.4 lakh e-way bills were generated among which, the state of Karnataka took the lead in e-way bill generation on January 30 with 1.4 lakh bills being generated during this trail period.
- From the better technological amenities to smoothly implement Ewaybill mechanism : The State has proved to be well dependent on its own by giving an example of perfectly scrutinized GST tracking systems. Recently when GST revenues dipped down to a concerned level, the government has sought some information regarding the proper implementation of GST regime in the state of Karnataka.
Also, the state government has applied a better technological system to take a view on all the intrastate transaction of value more than INR 50,000. The state government in its meeting suggested to the authorities and GST council that the eway bill should be applied to one state and after the observing the consequences, it can be further taken to the other stats.
In the matter of the eway bill, the Karnataka government was the first to implement on September 12, 2017, with the help of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure of the state government to bring out Ewaybill Karnataka for generation of eway bills for inter state and intra-State movement of goods.
- From the report and statement made by Karnataka s Agricultural Minister : “The e-way bill system has been implemented in Karnataka since September 2017. Earlier, we had a similar system under the VAT regime, too. More than 1 lakh eway bills are generated every day in the system. A number of awareness and capacity building steps have been undertaken to sensitise traders, transporters as well as department officials in order to implement the e-way bill system in a smooth manner. About 1,20,000 dealers are registered under the system and around 947 transporters are also registered.”
The eway bill launched for state of Karnataka got major share of acceptance from traders and tax payers as they perceived the system of movement of goods as a simplest procedure where in, the supplier of goods requiring e-way bill has to register, and just fill up 6 or 7 mandatory fields and the vehicle number, and generate an e-way permit. And on being stopped, the transporter only needs to show e-way permit which could also be carried on a mobile phone. As per the experience in Karnataka, only 2 percent of e-way permits were checked and physical examination of goods was only about 0.2 percent while rest of the goods moved without any interference from the tax administration. One can hope that sooner the rest of the states join the Eway bill club for generation of eway bills, but the effectiveness of the same could only be summed up to satisfaction only when every state join the system and only when each state join the movement by generating e-way bills for intra-state movement of goods.
With the fog getting cleared surrounding the eway bill platform, and the expected full forced Ewaybill to be back on the tracks kicking and rolling back again. Streamlining or providing allowance for Eway bill infusion into daily routine business activities becomes important.
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