E-way bill rolled out for inter-state goods transit

 NEW DELHI: Nationwide electronic or e-way bill system for inter-state movement of goods has been rolled out on Sunday, with GSTN officials saying that the platform is working smoothly. Karnataka is the only state which has implemented the e-way bill system for moving goods within the state. 

The state has been using the eway bill platform since September last year for intra-state movement of goods.From Sunday, businesses and transporters have to produce e-way bill before a GST (Goods and Services Tax) inspector for moving goods worth over Rs 50,000 from one state to another.

Official at the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), the company which has developed the IT backbone for GST regime, said the e-way bill platform has been working smoothly and Karnataka is also generating e-way bill for intra-state movement of goods.

Touted as an anti-evasion measure and would help boost tax collections by clamping down on trade that currently happens on cash basis, the eway bill provision of the GST was first introduced on February 1. Its implementation was put on hold after the system developed glitches in generating permits. With several states starting to generate intrastate e-way bills on the portal, the system developed a snag.

Since then, the platform has been made more robust, so that it can handle load of as many as 75 lakh inter-state eway bills daily without any glitch. The system has been designed and developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC). Till early last week, 11 lakh entities had registered on e-way bill portal.