The Central Government, today notified 1st February 2018 as the due date for implementing E-Way Bill Rules under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.
Two weeks ago, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has through video conferencing decided to implement E-way bill from 1st February 2017.
After the meeting, the Council has said that until such time as the National e-way Bill is ready, the States were authorized to continue their own separate e-way Bill systems. However, it was represented by the trade and transporters that this is causing undue hardship in the Inter-State movement of goods and therefore, bringing in an early all India system of e-way Bill has become a necessity.
After discussions with all the States, the following decisions were taken:-
i) The nationwide e-way Bill system will be ready to be rolled out on a trial basis latest by 16th January 2018. Trade and transporters can start using this system on a voluntary basis from 16th January 2018.
ii) The Rules for implementation of nationwide e-way Bill system for Inter-State movement of goods on a compulsory basis will be notified with effect from 1st February 2018. This will bring uniformity across the States for seamless inter-State movement of goods.
iii) While the System for both inter-State and intra-State e-way Bill generation will be ready by 16th January 2018, the States may choose their own timings for implementation of e-way Bill for intra-State movement of goods on any date before 1st June 2018. There are certain States which are already having the 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, the Uniform System of e-way Bill for inter-State as well as the intra-State movement will be implemented across the country by 1st June 2018.
Under the E-way Bill provisions, both the inter-State and intra-State movement of goods above Rs 50,000 is required to be pre-registered online. Earlier, when a few days were left for the GST rollout, the Central Government had decided to postpone the implementation of the provision since it was not sure about the technological backbone.
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