Ranchi: The state's trading community, particularly transporters, heaved a sigh of relief on Friday with the Centre deferring the rollout of e-way bills, mandatory permits needed to move goods worth Rs 50,000 or more intra and inter-state, because of reports of widespread system glitches.
In Ranchi and most parts of the state, the e-way bill rollout was marred by system failures on Thursday. Transportation of goods had to be suspended.
"In view of difficulties faced by traders to generate e-way bill due to technical glitches, it has been decided to extend the trial phase, both for inter and intra-state movement of goods. It will be made compulsory from a date to be announced later," read a message posted on the official GST twitter handle late on Thursday night.
However, generation of e-way bills would continue on a trial basis. "If anyone wants to generate e-way bill, they can do so for movement of their goods. In a sense, traders can start practicing this exercise," clarified additional commissioner of commercial taxes A.K. Sinha.
He said they were informed of the decision to hold the e-way bill rollout on Friday morning. "After that we started sending out messages to all our offices in districts and stakeholders like transporters, trader outfits etc," he said.
On Thursday, the pre-scheduled day of the rollout, the GSTN network remained out of order. "It wasn't in our hands as it is manned by NIC Karnataka. We were flooded with panic calls from various parts of the state and we remained busy addressing people's concerns," Sinha said.
He said the commercial taxes department would use the time to help traders get acquainted with the system. "We will hold workshops and training session for people of various sectors," Sinha said.
President of the Federation of Dhanbad Zila Chamber of Commerce Rajesh Gupta was critical of the government. "The e-way bill was introduced with undue haste without necessary preparation," he said.
Singhbhum Chamber of Commerce and Industry general secretary Vijay Anand Moonka welcomed the move to hold back the e-way bill rollout.
"It's a good decision to hold on till the system is made fully compatible to bear the direct and indirect load of generating permits round-the-clock," he said after handing over a memorandum to joint commissioner (state taxes) J.P. Toppo in Jamshedpur, demanding that the rollout be postponed to April 1.
Members of Ranchi Goods Transporters Association (RGTA), with over 500 transporters of Ramgarh and Ranchi under its wing, said business was normal on Friday.
Association spokesman Sunil Singh Chauhan said that he couldn't send several consignments to MNCs like Godrej, LG and other companies to districts since 7am on Thursday as neither he nor his colleges were able to generate e-way bills. "Every time, one tried to log in to the GSTN portal and generate permit, there was a server error. At one point, only the server error message was flashing," he said.
However, once word spread that the e-way bill rollout had been held back, business resumed normally at trading hubs like Jalan Road in Upper Bazar.
"Good that wisdom has dawned on the authorities to put e-way bill on hold for the time being. Or else, there would have been a nationwide chaos and people would have hit the streets on Friday," Chauhan said.
With inputs from Pinaki Majumdar and Praduman Choubey
