Revised intra-state e-way bill deadline worries industry

With the intra-state  e-way bill  now scheduled to start from February 1in 15 states instead of June 1 , companies said they are not yet prepared for the development and expect supply disruptions. 

The  Finance Minister  said on Thursday last week that 15 states will start the intra-state e-way bill from February 1 , along with the inter-state implementation of the e-way bill. The e-way bill is an electronic permit with detailed information of goods being transported. 

"While we had prepared our systems and stakeholders for the inter-state e-way bill from February 1 , there is unpreparedness in trade and from our logistics partners for the intra-state implementation of the e-way bill in less than a fortnight in 15 states. This is a big cause for concern for us now," Dabur chief executive  Sunil Duggal  said. 

Starting February 1 , the e-way bill will anyway be mandatory for every inter-state movement of goods beyond 10 km with a value of Rs 50,000 and above. 

Parle Products marketing head Mayank Shah said challenges could be infrastructure related. 

Logistics company Eco Rent a Car managing director Rajesh Loomba said: "Adequate and better adaptation of technology would help iron out glitches. There are a lot of complexities involved in the implementation of the bill and lack of seamless technology can cause disruption and delays." 

Very large volumes of e-way bills will have to be supported by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) portal, which, many industry officials said, may not be able to handle the load.