Gujarat defers e-Way Bill indefinitely

Gujarat government has deferred the e-Way Bill for intrastate transport of goods and services indefinitely.

The Bill is a part and partial of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime to monitor the movement of goods. Accordingly, businessmen buying or selling goods worth Rs50,000 or more or transporting goods or outside a radius of 10 km need to have e-Way Bill. Even transporters cannot pick up the goods without the Bill.

The move has come as a breather to small businesses and transporters, who have to be depended on tax experts to generate the Bill.

E-Way Bill was to come into force from February 1 onwards, but the crashing of the website to generate the bills on day one itself led the central government deferring e-Way Bill for interstate transfer of goods indefinitely. For intra-state e-Way Bill, the state was to take a call on when to begin the implementation of the Bill. Maharashtra had deferred the Bill till April 30, while West Bengal had deferred the Bill till May 1. These decisions were taken in January this year. On the other hand, Gujarat had exempted all but 19 commodities from e-Way Bill and decided that the Bill will come into force from February 1.

However, with central government deferring the implementation, Gujarat also followed with a notification saying that the implementation has been deferred until February 20. The Commissioner of Commercial Taxes on February 15 came up with a revised notification saying that it has been deferred indefinitely.

BACK TRACK

• The Commissioner of Commercial Taxes on February 15 came up with a revised notification saying that it has been deferred indefinitely.