Finance ministry asks for e-way bill report

New Delhi: The finance ministry has sought a report from GSTN, the IT-backbone provider for GST, on glitches in the system that derailed the anti-tax evasion electronic way bill system on the very first day of launch.

It wants GST-Network to detail system readiness before re-introducing the requirement for transporters to carry an electronic waybill or e-way bill for moving goods between states, finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia told PTI.

The e-way bill provision of the GST was introduced on Thursday but its implementation was put on hold after the system developed glitches in generating permits.

Mr Adhia said there is no going back on e-way bill, which is a tool for preventing tax evasion, and it will be re-introduced in “next few weeks” after the system is fully ready.

Under GST, e-way bill is an electronic way bill required for movement of goods more than Rs 50,000 in value and can be generated on the GSTN.

Mr Adhia said by deferring the implementation of the e-way requirement the government has shown to the industry that it is willing to accommodate their demands so that they do not suffer.

“I have told A.B. Pandey (GSTN chairman) to give an assessment of what went wrong, how much time would be required to set it (e-way bill system) right and make it fool proof,” Mr Adhia said.

Mr Adhia said states were “very insistent” on introducing e-way bill as early as possible and when the GSTN conducted trail runs the system was working well.

“But, unfortunately when the load became too much some of the server started responding slowly and we didn’t want traders to suffer because of our technological glitches, so we said we will give few more days to the system to improve and this time we will make sure that there is no further glitch,” he added.