Gujarat Ahead of All States in E-way Bill Generation

States may exempt a certain category of businesses from e-way bills for moving goods within cities to avoid harassment and inconvenience to taxpayers.

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Gujarat is now leading the country in the number of e-way bills generated, ever since the auxiliary compliance to Goods and Services Tax was rolled out on 1 April 2018. Since Gujarat is a major manufacturing hub for petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and textile among others, it comes as no surprise that the state is well ahead of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana and UP in terms of e-way bill generation.

Meanwhile, diamond traders are completely now exempted from e-way bills under Rule 138 to 138 B as per the notification issued on 23 January this year by the Central Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue. The notification states that if the commodity (diamond) is being moved around in non-motorised vehicles, there is no need to generate an e-way bill.

Gujarat Miles Ahead of the Rest

The GST regime requires businesses and transporters to generate an e-way bill for moving goods that are worth more than Rs 50,000. E-way bills are also to be generated for intra-state movement of 19 commodities as well. In April, May, and June first week, Gujarat recorded 4.9 million, 5.2 million and 5,73,453 e-way bills respectively.

After Gujarat comes Maharashtra where the state has collected 2.99 million, 4.18 million, and 964,778 bills in the months of April and May, and the first of week of June; meanwhile Karnataka collected 3.73 million, 3.89 million, and 444,047 bills, respectively, for the same period.

Uttar Pradesh at 2.73 million, 4.41 million and 500,095; and Haryana at 2.62 million, 4.51 million and 506,837; completes the list of top five of Indian states generating e-way bills for the same period.

The joint secretary of check posts in the commercial tax department of the Gujarat Government, RR Patel, attributed strict checks and controls measures as the leading cause behind Gujarat’s rise in e-way Bill generation.

When we started ‘Mobile Check Squads’ in April, we realised that certain traders who trade in in commodities such as ceramic items and scrap iron are not generating-way bills for evading GST. We also observed that certain traders and transporters are not keeping the invoice and the e-way bills while the shipments being moved. But since we have around 23 mobile squads spread across the state, such traders and transporters are detained, and we ensure that they are generating e-way bills.

RR Patel, Joint Secretary of check posts, Commercial Tax Department, Gujarat