The e-way Bill system for intra-state movement of goods will be implemented from April 15 in five states. According to the GST Council, the five states are Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Telengana and Uttar Pradesh.
With the roll-out of e-way Bill system in these states, it is expected that trade and industry will be further facilitated insofar as the transport of goods is concerned, an official release said.
This would eventually pave the way for a nationwide single e-way Bill system. Already, e-way Bill system for intra-state movement of goods is operational in Karnataka from April 1, 2018.
It may be recalled that the GST Council had with effect from April 1 rolled out e-way Bill system for all inter-state movement of goods.
Commenting on the development, Archit Gupta, Founder & CEO, ClearTax , said that barring a few exceptions the e-way Bill portal has been stable so far. Transporters though are facing some challenges which hopefully will be resolved soon.
"The Government has succeeded with the inter-state infrastructure and we hope the same will be replicated with the intra-state roll out as well. The staggered roll-out for a few states at a time will help balance the load," Gupta said.
M S Mani, Partner, Deloitte India, said that the introduction of e-way Bill by five states should be watched very carefully and further expansion should take place only after the changes settle down over two weeks.
"While a phased introduction was expected, the varying dates for various states is putting additional compliance pressures on businesses having pan India operations", Mani said.
Meanwhile, the official release also said that e-way bills are getting generated successfully and till April 9 more than sixty three lakh e-way bills have been successfully generated.
Jigar Doshi, Partner--Indirect Tax, SKP Business Consulting LLP said that the official release paints a picture that the revised implementation plan of e-way bills has been successful (with almost 6.3 million e-way bills being generated for inter-state transaction). Hence an anticipation could be built that the first slot of states going live with intra-state e-way bill may be "lab rabbits" for larger implementation of the one nation system, he said.
Harshad Shinde, Product Manager, Avalara India, said that the roll-out (for intra-state) at a staggered rate will ensure that the system will get incrementally tested. The States chosen, have a mixture of high and low volumes of transactions.
"The system will be thoroughly tested in the process, and we will know the answer as to whether the system can handle increased loads of transactions", he said.