The national flag, temple prasadam , khadi fabric, and Gandhi caps may be exempt from Goods and Services Tax, but for their transportation, the Centre is considering mandating the generation of e-waybills once that system is operationalised.
Transporting currency, LPG, and kerosene oil, however, won’t need an e-waybill. An e-waybill is an electronic bill documenting any transport of a good of a value of more than ₹50,000.
A list of exemptions and items to be included in the proposed e-waybill rules, in the possession of The Hindu , shows that while hand-gliders and their components will require an e-waybill, sensitive technology that goes into spacecrafts and satellites will be exempt.
Other items that will require e-waybills are curd, natural honey, dried vegetables, unroasted coffee beans, unbranded coconut water, and firewood, among a list of 61 item groups.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitlley last Sunday announced, following the 17th meeting of the GST Council, that since the Council could not reach a consensus regarding the implementation of the e-waybill system, it would authorise the continuation of the current waybill until a consensus is reached.
‘Point of controversy’
“The e-waybill was always a point of controversy among the trader community and the government,” Vivek Jain, Founder at CAclubindia, an online platform for tax professionals, said.
“The government is not ready in terms of software or the technology backbone that is required.”
According to the latest version of the e-waybill rules being considered by the GST Council, the government will have to install radio-frequency identification (RFID) scanners “at places where verification of movement of goods is required to be carried out”, so as to verify the e-waybill linked RFID tags on vehicles.
The rules further add that, upon the generation of e-waybill on the common portal, a unique e-waybill number will be provided to the supplier, recipient, and transporter that can be verified by a tax official at any point during the inter-state or intra-state movement of the goods.
“Every business generating this e-waybill—for even intra-state transport—on a daily basis would be a mammoth task,” Mr. Jain said.
“The ₹50,000 invoice is very low and should be increased to at least ₹1 lakh,” Mr. Jain added.
This ₹50,000 limit applies to any and all vehicles transporting goods, according to the rules, which include rickshaw-pullers transporting a fridge, individuals taking home a TV they bought, or even an Amazon delivery agent.
“Any vehicle that is moving with a shipment in it and the value of that shipment is above ₹50,000 then you have to make sure an e-waybill is generated at the time of pickup, whether it is a bike, a rickshaw, or a 4-wheeled vehicle,” Vijay Kumar, COO at Express Industry Council of India. “From an operations perspective, this would be a nightmare.”
“If you are buying something more than ₹50,000 then that will also need an e-waybill,” Mr Kumar added. “If an individual goes and picks up something, she will need an e-waybill when she carries it home.”
Another issue, according to infrastructure and transport industry players is the proposed validity of these e-waybills. The rules say that an e-waybill generated for a journey of 500-1000 km would be valid for only ten days. Transporters have pointed out that large equipment like boilers, which require huge 16-wheeled slow-moving trucks, cannot be transported over such large distances over a short amount of time. Others have pointed to the difficulty in quick transport in difficult terrain like in the North Easter states.
