NEW DELHI: After deciding to mandate the use of electronic way (e-way) bill to track movement of goods within five states from next week, the government is working to introduce other anti-evasion tools to shore up the collection of GST, where it suspects massive leakage is taking place.
On Tuesday, the finance ministry said that intra-state movement of goods in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala — which account for 61% of the inter-state e-way bill generation — will require the electronic tool from April 15 as part of the planned expansion. E-way bill had become mandatory for movement of goods valued over Rs 50,000 from one state to another at the start of the month.
“Even under VAT many states had the tool. But given the concerns we will look at options to ensure that businesses are not impacted and remain viable,” said an official. One option is to increase the threshold of daily transactions to keep several small businesses out.