After a 14-day trial run that started on January 17, transporters were required to use e-way bills from February 1, the day the Union Budget for fiscal 2019 was unveiled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
But hundreds of transporters complained they could not generate the e-way bills. Many of them took to Twitter with complaints that the e-way bill portal was down, with some even pointing out what they claimed was security concerns due to use of insecure "http" connection over the secure "https" - a protocol over which data is sent between a browser and the website.
"I am trying to generate e-way bill from past 1 hour but site not working," Lalit Jain, a businessman, tweeted.
Some people also asked whether other means could be used to generate e-way bills, and if that is not possible, how goods would be moved at all.
The Finance Ministry said the trial phase for using GST e-way bills will be extended till the glitches are fixed.
The GST e-way bill system was planned to be introduced along with the new national tax in July last year. But the government decided to wait till the GST stabilised.Due to difficulties faced by trade in generating e-way bill due to initial technological glitches,it has been decided to extend the trial phase for generation of e-way bill, both for inter & intra State movement of goods.Will be made compulsory from a new date in due course
- Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) February 2, 2018
The GST Network or GSTN is the company that is developing the technology base for the e-way bill system, and it has issued 2.84 lakh bills on its website since the trial run started on January 17, news agency PTI reported.
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Mr Jaitley has said the GST has smoothened out by now and the government is confident of harvesting the results of the new indirect tax regime in the months ahead.With inputs from agencies
