Amidst all the confusions and anxieties, the Government has successfully launched the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on 1st July. However, certain provisions such as E-way Bill, TDS/TCS etc., are yet to be enforced due to lack of technical assistants and such other issues.
As per the E-way Bill provisions, the movement of good above Rs 50,000 is required to be to 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.
However, the system is likely to kick in from October after a centralised software platform is ready, a top official said.
The information technology platform for the e-way bill system is being developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) along with GST-Network — the company which has developed the IT backbone for the new indirect tax regime.
The Centre has also decided to relax the timeline provision under which the e-way bill generated by GSTN for 20 days for goods travelling more than 1,000 km. Earlier, this was 15 days.
“The e-way bill rules may be taken up at the next meeting of the GST Council on August 5. After the rules are in place, the NIC and GSTN would develop an all-India platform for a consolidated system,” another official said.
As per the E-Way draft 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 Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) embedded onto the conveyance.
The rules authorise the tax commissioner or an officer empowered by him on his behalf to intercept any conveyance to verify the e-way bill or the number in physical form for all interstate and intra-state movement of goods. The commissioner may extend the validity period of the e-way bill for certain categories of goods.
