GST EWay bill
The e-Way Bill may be a document which supplies details concerning the movement of products and must be carried by transporters for any consignment Rs 50,000.
The complete e-Way Bill System, which includes development of web-based IT Application, hosting IT infrastructure (which includes network, computing and security) and operation & management of the system is the responsibility of National Informatics Centre (NIC).
It provides multiple modes of e-way Bill generation including Web, Bulk Upload, SMS, Mobile App and API for Large Taxpayers/ GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs).
As 24×7 accessibility is a critical requirement of this application, infrastructure is designed to provide redundancy at multiple levels including firewall, load balancer, switches, racks, virtual machines (web servers), database servers and MPLS links (for connecting to GSTN servers).
Virtual machines for webservers are created on Hyper-V clusters. 24 VMs are used as front-end (with IIS). Number of other VMs have been created for API, Mobile App, GSTN API and Redis.
Objective
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Single and Unified e-Way Bill for Inter and Intra-State movement of goods for the whole country
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Fully online and enabling ‘Paperless’ movement to track and monitor movement of goods across various States
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Improve service delivery with quick turnaround time for the entire supply chain and to provide anytime anywhere access to data/ services
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Minimal physical interaction with the concerned departments and hassle-free movement of goods Technology Used
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Front end forms are developed using ASP.Net with C# as the scripting language using framework 4.0
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Backend database is SQL Server 2017
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Redis Enterprise NOSQL for Caching
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APIs using JSON for android/IOS Mobile App and integration with systems of large Tax Payers/ GST Suvidha Providers(GSPs)
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Akamai CDN for distribution of static content such as user manual, FAQs etc.
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PRTG for monitoring of infrastructure
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App Dynamics to monitor Application Performance
Purpose
This document aims to explain the operational procedure on how to use web-based e-Way Bill system. It also explains the features of e-Way Bill system and role of the stakeholders involved in the system. This document is intended for registered taxpayers under GST and un-registered transporters, who are the main stakeholders of e-Way Bill system under GST.
Who should Generate an eWay Bill?
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Registered Person – Eway bill must be generated when there is a movement of goods of more than Rs 50,000 in value to or from a registered person. A Registered person or the transporter may choose to generate and carry eway bill even if the value of goods is less than Rs 50,000.
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Unregistered Persons – Unregistered persons are also required to generate e-Way Bill. However, where a supply is made by an unregistered person to a registered person, the receiver will have to ensure all the compliances are met as if they were the supplier.
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Transporter – Transporters carrying goods by road, air, rail, etc. also need to generate e-Way Bill if the supplier has not generated an e-Way Bill.
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How is it generated?
An e-way bill contains two parts-
Part A to be furnished by the person who is causing movement of goods of consignment value exceeding Rs.50,000/- and
Part B (transport details) to be furnished by the person who is transporting the goods.
Where the goods are transported by a registered person whether as consignor or recipient, the said person shall have to generate the e-way bill by furnishing information in part B on the GST common portal.
Where the e-way bill is not generated by registered person and the goods are handed over to the transporter for transportation by road, the registered person shall furnish the information relating to the transporter in Part B of FORM GST EWB-01 on the common portal and the e-way bill shall be generated by the transporter on the said portal on the basis of the information furnished by the registered person in Part A of FORM GST EWB-01.
A registered person may obtain an Invoice Reference Number from the common portal by uploading, on the said portal, a tax invoice issued by him in FORM GST INV-1 and produce the same for verification by the proper officer in lieu of the tax invoice and such number shall be valid for a period of thirty days from the date of uploading.
In the above case, the registered person will not have to upload the information in Part A of FORM GST EWB-01 for generation of e-way bill and the same shall be auto populated by the common portal on the basis of the information furnished in FORM GST INV-1.
Upon generation of the e-way bill on the common portal, a unique e-way bill number (EBN) generated by the common portal, shall be made available to the supplier, the recipient and the transporter on the common portal.
The details of e-way bill generated shall be made available to the recipient, if registered, on the common portal, who shall communicate his acceptance or rejection of the consignment covered by the e-way bill.
In case, the recipient does not communicate his acceptance or rejection within seventy-two hours of the details being made available to him on the common portal, it shall be deemed that he has accepted the said details.
Documents or Details required to generate eWay Bill
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Invoice/ Bill of Supply/ Challan related to the consignment of goods
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Transport by road – TRANSPORTED-ID or Vehicle number
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Transport by rail, air, or ship – Transporter ID, Transport document number, and date on the document
Validity of E-Way bill
The validity of e-way bill depends on the distance to be travelled by the goods.
For a distance of less than 100 Km the e-way bill will be valid for a day from the relevant date. For every 100 Km thereafter, the validity will be additional one day from the relevant date.
The “relevant date” shall mean the date on which the e-way bill has been generated and the period of validity shall be counted from the time at which the e-way bill has been generated and each day shall be counted as twenty-four hours.
In general, the validity of the e-way bill cannot be extended. However, Commissioner may extend the validity period only by way of issue of notification for certain categories of goods which shall be specified later.
Further, if under circumstances of an exceptional nature, the goods cannot be transported within the validity period of the e-way bill, the transporter may generate another e-way bill after updating the details in Part B of FORM GST EWB-01.
Cancellation of E-Way bill
Where an e-way bill has been generated under this rule, but goods are either not transported or are not transported as per the details furnished in the e-way bill, the e-way bill may be cancelled electronically on the common portal, either directly or through a Facilitation Centre notified by the Commissioner, within 24 hours of generation of the e-way bill. However, an e-way bill cannot be cancelled if it has been verified in transit in accordance with the provisions of rule 138B of the CGST Rules, 2017 .
Benefits of e-Way Bill system
The major benefits of e-Way Bill system are as follows:
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The traders need not visit tax offices to collect and submit the Way Bill forms as used to be done in VAT regimes in some states.
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Average waiting time at mobile squad reduces drastically – As the verification of the e-Way Bill is done with the common portal, it will speed up the process of verification and allowing the vehicle to pass faster.
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Self-policing by traders- A trader while uploading gives the identification of the buying trader who will also account the transaction automatically.
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Environment friendly – The need of the paper form of the multiple copies of way bill is eliminated. Hence, the tons of paper are saved per day.
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Generation of GSTR-1 returns – GSTR-1 return of the supplier is auto prepared; hence he need not have to upload the same.
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Officials saved of monotonous work collecting and matching the manual way bill with the returns of the taxpayers.
Conclusion
The e-way bill provisions aim to remove the ills of the erstwhile way bill system prevailing under VAT in different states, which was a major contributor to the bottlenecks at the check posts.
Moreover, different states prescribed different e-way bill rules which made compliance difficult.
The e-way bill provisions under GST will bring in a uniform e-way bill rule which will be applicable throughout the country.
The physical interface will pave way for digital interface which will facilitate faster movement of goods.
It is bound to improve the turnaround time of vehicles and help the logistics industry by increasing the average distances travelled, reducing the travel time as well as costs.
DISCLAIMER- These materials are public information and have been prepared solely for educational purposes. These materials reflect only the personal views of the author and are not individual legal advice.
It is understood that each case is fact specific and that the appropriate solution in any case will vary. Finally, the owner will not be accountable for any loses injuries or damages from the exposures or usage of this information.