E-way Bill - movement of goods under GST

[Pradeep Jain]

Every registered person who causes “movement of goods” of consignment value exceeding fifty thousand rupees - (i) in relation to a supply; or (ii) for reasons other than supply; or (iii) due to inward supply from an unregistered person, shall, before commencement of movement, furnish information relating to the said goods in Part A of FORM GST INS-01, electronically, on the common portal. Any transporter transferring goods from one conveyance to another in the course of transit shall, before such transfer and further movement of goods, generate a new e-way bill. Thus every movement may it be from factory place to the place of transporter, or sending goods to job worker or a movement from manufacturers one location to another shall require an e-way bill. This would be burdensome for the supplier because he will have to keep gauge of every movement of goods.

Also, there are rigid timelines regarding e-way bills. If the goods do not reach the destination in time mentioned in the E way bill then the earlier E way bill will expire and a new E way bill will have to be generated. In case of unforeseen circumstances leading to transfer of goods from one vehicle to another will nullify the earlier e-way bill and transporters would have to create a new e-way bill on the GSTN portal before moving ahead.
The entire multi-layered process will require participation by the supplier, the transporter and even the recipient, who have to communicate its acceptance or rejection of the consignment covered by the e-way bill within a very short period. This will cause myriad of inconveniences and cumbersome digital work for small time businessmen.

Further transporters generally belong to a class that is unorganized and is not well versed with digital equipments, thus it will be a challenge to implement this system smoothly.

Also the assessee will be left burdened with generating the E Bills for every single movement of goods. The proposed E-way bills, which will be required for movement of goods will make transport of goods a cumbersome, delayed and pricey affair under the GST regime.

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Discussions to this article

[Ganeshan Kalyani]

Yes the provision of eway bill is going to increase the compliance. It is complicated. But there is a concern on this provision. If an assessee under GST would be uploading invoice wise sales detail in GSTR1 and the same shall be accepted by the purchaser online which indicates that every transaction has been covered then why the authority want to track in the another method?

Also there is no clarity as to whether the physical copy of eway bill need to be carried by the transporter along with the goods in the vehicle.

[JAIPRAKASH RUIA]

1) Entry in GSTR 1 may not ensure the movement of goods but through E-way bill it may be ensured to some extent.

2) Details filled in GST INS - 01 by supplier may be available in GSTR 1 also, effectively only one entry.

[ANIL ANIKHINDI]

All these things are ok only under super connectivity roadways. In our country major problems are of inefficient infrastructure, such as, no or slow internet connectivity, lack of educative class of people handling materials etc. How such e-way bill would be implemented is the 100m$ question. Instead Govt. may think of certain devise which can be used without internet connection to collect the information from all movements of materials on all check posts and reconcile such data subsequently with returns submitted on GSTN by the suppliers/recipients.