GST officers have been armed with real-time data of commercial vehicle movement on highways with the integration of the e-way bill (EWB) system with FasTag and RFID.

Why such a move?

• The integration of e-way bill, RFID, and FASTag will enable tax officers to undertake live vigilance in respect of EWB compliances by businesses and will help curb tax evasion.
• It will aid in preventing revenue leakage by real-time identification of cases of recycling and/or non-generation of EWBs.

What are E-way bills (EWB)?

• Under the GST regime, transporters should carry the eWay Bill when moving goods from one place to another when certain conditions are satisfied.
• EWBs are mandatory for inter-state transportation of goods valued over Rs 50,000 from April 2018, with the exemption to precious items such as gold
• In this system, businesses and transporters have to produce before a GST inspector the e-way bill, if asked.
• On average, 25 lakh goods vehicle movements from more than 800 tolls are reported on a daily basis to the e-way bill system.

Benefits of the move

• Tax officers can now access reports on vehicles that have passed the selected tolls without EWBs in the past few minutes.
• Also, vehicles carrying critical commodities specific to the state and having passed the selected toll can be viewed.
• Any suspicious vehicles and vehicles of EWBs generated by suspicious taxpayer GSTINs, that have passed the selected toll on a near real-time basis, can also be viewed in this report.
• The officers can use these reports while conducting vigilance and make the vigilance activity more effective.
• Also, the officers of the audit and enforcement wing can use these reports to identify fraudulent transactions like bill trading, recycling of EWBs.

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