Bharat SainiLast Updated on August 25, 2017 by Bharat Saini
Under GST (Goods & Services Tax) regime, e-way bill, or electronic way bill, that likely to kick in from October 2017, will be required to transport any goods worth more than Rs 50,000. IT platform for this e-way bill is being developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) along with GST-Network (GSTN). The e-way bill would rely heavily on technology, employing RFID chips and QR codes; that will have details of the goods carried on a vehicle and is proposed as a permit of sorts in electronic format. RFID or Radio-Frequency Identification Device, acronym refers to small electronic devices that consist of a small chip and an antenna and chip typically is capable of carrying 2,000 bytes of data or less.
RFID RFID QR codes
Movement of commercial goods between states has speeded up with dismantling of fiscal barriers and elimination of check posts to cross state boundaries after the launch of GST on July 1, 2017 with India transforming from more than 30 markets into a single market. Government bets big on tech to ensure e-way bill does not slow down goods traffic on highways in monitoring of goods movement. According to the government officials the effort is to have high technology interface that would ensure that all data regarding an e-way bill is captured on it. Having it embedded on RFID chip or a QR code will help in checking these in a non-intrusive manner without holding up a vehicle and would be checked with hand-held devices or RFID chip readers.
GST-Network will generate e-way bills that will remain valid for one to 20 days (earlier this was proposed for 15 days), depending on the transport distance. One-day permit will be for a distance up to 100 km while a 20-day permit will allow more than 1,000 km transit, as per the proposed law. The GST Commissioner may be empowered to extend the validity period of e-way bill for certain categories of goods.
As per draft e-way bill rules, the person in-charge of conveyance will be required to carry the invoice or bill of supply or delivery challan, and a copy of the e-way bill or the e-way bill number, either physically or mapped to a RFID embedded on to the conveyance. A tax commissioner or an officer empowered by him on his behalf can intercept any conveyance to verify the e-way bill or the physical goods, for all inter-state and intra-state movement of goods. Physical verification of conveyances can be carried out on specific information of evasion of tax, as per the rules. The officer will be required to submit a summary report of every inspection of goods in transit within 24 hours and the final report within three days of inspection.
The e-way bill rules are scheduled to be taken up in the next meeting of the GST Council on August 5, 2017. After the rules are in place, the NIC and GSTN would develop an all India platform for a consolidated system. In the mean time, since states like West Bengal, Kerala, Bihar, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh already had a robust e-way bill system, the GST Council in its meeting last month has allowed the states having e-way bill rules to continue with the existing form till a central format is built.
