E-way bill for inter-state goods movement from April 1: GoM recommends

New Delhi: The GST provision requiring transporters to carry an electronic way bill or e-way bill when moving goods between states should be implemented from April 1, a group of state finance ministers recommended on Saturday.

GoM head and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi said the requirement for intra-state movement of goods of more than Rs 50,000 value would be introduced in phases after assessing the response for inter-state movement.

He said that 9.5 lakh taxpayers are registered on e-way bills portal, and 6.5 lakh e-way bills are generated per day.

"We are expecting 26 lakh to 50 lakh returns to be filed per day which we expect to go up to 75 lakh in future. So we are preparing for that," he added.

After implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, the requirement of carrying e-way bill was postponed pending IT network readiness. It was implemented from February 1 but the system crashed and its implementation was deferred.

The GoM head Sushil Modi said that the recommendation of the panel would be considered by the GST Council at its meeting on March 10.

Besides plugging tax evasion, the e-way bill is supposed to boost revenues by 15-20 percent.

E-way bill is an electronic way bill for movement of goods which can be generated on the GSTN (common portal). Movement of goods of more than Rs 50,000 in value cannot be made by a registered person without an e-way bill.

The e-way bill can also be generated or cancelled through SMS. When an e-way bill is generated, a unique e-way bill number (EBN) is allocated and is available to the supplier, recipient, and the transporter.