(FE)
After a largely smooth roll-out of the interstate electronic way bill — a mechanism to track cargo movement in the goods and services tax (GST) regime — from April 1, the government on Tuesday said five states would implement the scheme for intrastate transport as well, effective April 15. The states — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh — together generated the bulk of interstate bills since its roll-out on April 1. In Karnataka, the e-way bill system has been in place since April 1 for both interstate and intrastate transport.
The e-way bill is a crucial anti-evasion measure, which is expected to plug revenue leakages of Rs 10,000 crore in business-to-consumer transactions. Earlier, the GST Council had to suspend a plan to roll out the system in February as the IT system crashed owing to more-than-estimated traffic.
The council then decided to defer e-way bill implementation for interstate transport to April 1 and roll out the system for interstate movement of goods in a staggered manner. “Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala together accounted for 61% of e-way bills generated in the country till April 9,” said Prakash Kumar, CEO of GST Network, the IT backbone of the system.
