6 states adopt e-way bill

New Delhi: Heralding a paradigm shift in movement of goods from one state to another, trial runs for e-way bill under the GST regime has been kick started from Tuesday.

Four states — Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Kerala — had already started using e-way bill. On Tuesday, six more states started their trial runs. With this, e-way bill now covers 10 states.

E-way bill, which transporters will have to carry to move the goods from one place to another, is a system generated bill. These electronic bills can be generated from the GSTN portal.

E-way bill is proposed to be rolled out across the country from February 1 after which there will not be any need for separate transit pass in each state and one e-way bill will be valid throughout India for movement of goods.

“We had started e-way bill in four states earlier. Now we have started the trial run of e-way bill in six more states — Haryana, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Sikkim and Jharkhand. Other states are also likely to join us soon in this initiative and it will be implement it throughout the country from next month. Transporters and other taxpayers will not be required to visit any tax office or check post under this system and the e-way bill can be generated electronically,” said Prakash Kumar, CEO of GSTN.

Under the system, for every inter-state movement of goods beyond 10 km which have a value of Rs 50,000 and above, e-way bill will be mandatory with effect from February 1. The e-way bill can be generated through various modes like web, Android app, SMS, API-based site to site integration among others.  Consolidated e-way bill can be generated for vehicle carrying multiple consignments. The transporters can manage sub-users and allocate roles to them.  This way large transporters can declare their various offices as sub-users.

There is provision for cancellation of e-way bill within 24 hours by the person who have generated the e-way bill. The recipient can also reject the e-way bill within 72 hours of generation. The validity of e-way bill is fixed as one day for every 100 kilometres or part there off. “A nation-wide E-way Bill System will be rolled out on trial basis from tomorrow i.e. 16th January, 2018. Avail the opportunity to get used to the system before it becomes compulsory,”  CBEC had tweeted on Monday.