Crackdown! E-way bill issuance: To get it, this thing made mandatory

Tightening the norms for issuance of e-way bill, the GST Network has made it mandatory for businesses and transporters to mention PIN codes of places of loading and unloading of consignments. Quoting of PIN codes, according to officials, will help in calculating the correct distance and determine the validity of the electronic way or e-way bill, which is used by businesses to transport goods worth over Rs 50,000 both within and outside a state.

So far, businesses and transporters are required to broadly mention the distance and place of loading and unloading of consignments for generating e-way bill. As the validity of the e-way bill depends upon the distance mentioned by the businesses, it was feared that this could lead to tax evasion by transporters making multiple trips on the basis of same e-way bill.

The validity of the e-way bill is one day if the distance to be covered is less than 100 km. For every additional 100 kms or part thereof, the validity of the bill goes up by one day. Under the revised procedures for obtaining e-way bill, the GSTN has introduced the facility of auto population of state name based on the PIN code entered at consignor or consignee addresses, an official statement said Wednesday.

The move would further smoothen the experience of users generating e- way bill, the Goods and Services Network (GSTN) said. Another new feature now available on the e-way bill portal now alerts the generator of the e-way bill through a pop up and SMS message, in case the total invoice value entered by them is very high, to avoid making mistake, GSTN said.

"The new features are part of GSTN's continuous efforts to improve user experience and make the e-way bill generating process easy and convenient for users. These new features have been developed and introduced in response to feedback from both users as well as tax authorities to make generating of e-way bill easier," GSTN said.

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Between April 1 when the system came into force and September 30, a total of 25.32 crore e-way bills have been generated. Of this, the inter-state transport of goods have accounted for 12.14 crore of the bills while the intra state transport has contributed to 13.12 crore. As many as 24.53 lakh taxpayers and 31,232 transporters have registered with the e-way bill system so far.