Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The success of cloth tradersí protest in making Union government to withdraw GST hike has reignited the movement against e-way bill by traders who have recently come under the blanket, said grocery traders and transporters in Bhopal whom Free Press talked to on Monday.
The agitating traders had placed their demands before state Finance Minister Jagdish Devra and principal secretary (finance) Gulshan Bamra last month but to no avail.
By issuing a notification, the state government had added 30 more items including grocery goods and dry fruits to the list of e-way bills, raising the total number of goods attracting e-way bills to 41. The traders said they are already having a tough time complying with different provisions of GST and this will add to their hardship.
The owner of transporting company shops in Bhopal, Romit Vishwakarma, said, 'E-way bills have overburdened us with regulations. The validity of the bill is now one day for every 200 kilometres. Now, we have to cover the total journey of 200 km per day from the consignor place's to the consignee's place as per pin code calculated at shortest distance.'
The transporters say it is practically impossible to stick to deadline as they cite factors like holidays, accidents, traffic congestion etc. They also said that a penalty of 200 per cent of the tax value or 100 per cent of the invoice value under Section 129 of CGST Act, 2017, is levied on them in case of an error or expiry of the e-way bill.
However, grocer Anupam Agrawal has responded positively to the move. He said, 'The e-way bill is the new technology that we have to adapt to one way or other, today or tomorrow. Digitisation is the future and there is no harm in accepting it.'
What is e-way bill?
The electronic way (e-way) bill system falls under GST regime, wherein businesses and transporters have to produce an e-way bill before a GST inspector, if asked. The consignor or sender of goods has to fill their goods' detail on online portal in part A and the transporter has to update the vehicle number in part B.
E-way bills are required for inter-state movement of goods worth over Rs 50,000. For intra-state movement, limits vary from state to state. Gold is exempted. Before the latest amendment that came into effect on January 1, 2021, the e-way bills had a validity of one day for every 100 km. For over-dimensional cargo like trucks, the validity used to be one day for every 20 km.
