Faulty E-Way Bills Help Detect GST Evasion Worth Rs 276 Million, Tamil Nadu Leads With Over Half The Violations

Under Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, e-way bills were first introduced by PM Modi-led union government in April 2018 for inter-state movement of goods worth more than Rs 50,000 with the intention of checking evasion of the tax. The system was extended in phases to intra-state movement of goods, and to the whole country by June 2018.

The system, still in its initial stages, has led to detection of evasion amounting to Rs 128 billion under GST till date in FY2018-19. The cases for violation for e-way bill rules amount to Rs 276 million, reports Business Standard.

The fraud detection is expected to improve further as the nascent system stabilises.

Tamil Nadu leads among the States, accounting for almost half the total evaded amount, Rs 132.5 million. On the other hand, its recovery rate is a meagre 15 per cent.

While Tamil Nadu Tops In terms of the number of cases involving violations of e-way bill provisions, Gujarat, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh account for half of the evasion cases detected across India. Surprisingly, a comparatively smaller state of Tripura comes second in the amount of tax evaded.

Apart from e-way bills, intelligence-based enforcement and systematic analysis of data are the other methods being used by the government to tackle the evasion, Minister of State for Finance, Shiv Pratap Shukla informed the Parliament.