GST E-way Bill System Crashes Owing to Insufficient Trials

The post-budget days have brought more bad news and new problems for the think-tanks in the GST Council. The e-way bill system developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for tracking movement of goods worth over Rs 50,000 crashed within hours of its launch. The government had little option but to defer its implementation. The GSTN responsible for handling the implementation of the process was left red-faced and question marks to ponder upon.

The e-way bill system was tested for 15 days before final launch. Considering the scale of load handled by the system, some transporters and courier services believe the 15 day trial period was not good enough to test a big launch like this.

Bal Malkit Singh, Chairman of the core committee of All India Motor Transport Congress, said
“The system crashed along expected lines. Nobody was able to generate an e-way bill. Lakhs of trucks across the country were stranded on Thursday till the evening.”

In absence of the e-way bill system, goods are transported across the nation without e-way bills. This can easily facilitate tax evasion. “A GST regime without an e waybill system is impotent,” said SP Singh, a senior fellow at Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training. He said that trials should have started before the unified indirect tax regime rollout on July 1.

Transporters have the option to generate the e-way bill on the GSTN, the technology backbone of GST. Although, the Government had continuously affirmed that the system could handle a load of 5-6 lakh inter-state e-way bills a day. But all assurances and promises were castles in the air. The portal crashed under the load of 2-3 lakh e-way bills generated in an hour. The situation was very aptly explained by SP Singh, a senior fellow at Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training, who said, a GST regime without an eway bill system is impotent.

EICI (Express Industry Council of India) had made multiple requests to Government before the rollout. They wrote many times to the GSTN committee and warned that the e-way bill load would be too high and enough time should be allocated for testing. But all the advice and requests were ignored and the result is now for all to see. However, EICI still hopes that the Government would be more cautious next time around.

The losses are being calculated. A large number of trucks and other transport vehicles were left stranded on the highways. In the aftermath of the disaster, a lot of shipments could not be moved. The Government’s immediate decision to defer the rollout after the crash did not reach all the ground officials on time. This created panic and confusion for transporters, suppliers, and consumers.

The GST Council launched the e-way bill system with an aim to increase GST revenue as well as GST compliance. Although the scheduled date for e-way bill system rollout was June 1, 13 states voluntarily implemented the intrastate e-way bill system on February 1. The remaining states along with these 13 states would need to make the necessary updates immediately so that when finally launched on June 1, 2018, it does not leave the Government red faced due to technical glitches. However, the roadmap ahead for e-way bill system seems shrouded in confusion with different states opting for different launch dates for e-way bill system.

It seems the GST e-way bill system burdened by technical glitches and very bad implementation is not so simple and good anymore.