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Directions (Q. 121-125): Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it.   First the good news! Post-GST, the elimination of check posts by almost all states has resulted in a significant reduction in waiting time. Reports indicate a reduction of 3 to 7 hours, leading to a 10-16 per cent increase in road transport efficiency.   But this is only the first step towards developing a national regime that governs the movement of goods in the GST environment. The differences between the State and Central governments, and between the States, on the rules and format of a national document or e-way bill to be used for declaration of movement of goods, need to be resolved. In addition, a national IT system for generation and administration of these e-way bills needs to be put in place. The official deadline for rollout of a uniform national e-way bill and associated regulations governing the movement of cargo is October 1, 2017. In the meantime, each State follows its own system of rules and enforcement.   What are some of the concerns around rule-making for goods movement in India? And how would that potentially help or create operational challenges in the future?   The e-way bill would emerge as the most intensively used declaration document in India. Since all goods subject to GST that move on the road would have to potentially create an e-way bill, this would mean millions of such e- way bills being generated every day. Thus the rules and format from an 'ease of doing business' point of view is important.   Currently there are some challenges. First it requires generation of e-way bill even for intra-State movement. This means that even very short-haul movement of goods, or pick-up of shipments by courier from the door of individual shippers also fall within the ambit of the e-way bill. Since such movements were earlier exempt from the requirement in most States, it adds a layer of transaction costs that did not exist before. Imagine a courier at your door having to first prepare an e-way bill and submitting it to an IT platform before it can move with the product!   Second, the draft rules exempt shipments below Rs. 50,000 from the e-way bill. However, it still requires a truck that carries shipments collectively valued at more than Rs. 50,000 to generate e-way bills for each of the individual shipments in the truck, even if they are valued at less than Rs. 50,000. This would mean shifting the responsibility of generating the e-way bill from the shipper to the transporter. While this exemption is supposed to give relief to businesses from generating e-way bills for every small transaction, shifting this burden to transporters defeats the purpose.   Another challenge is for the transporter to change the vehicle number every time the shipment changes trucks. In a hub-and-spoke model, where a single shipment might change trucks several times, this substantially increases the data entry requirements and could potentially lead to delays as trucks assigned for a particular route are often decided on at the last minute.   While businesses can choose to file an e-invoice (called 1NV1) or a physical invoice for the actual transaction, the online e-way bill is mandatory. The logic is that the e-way bill provides an electronic trail and second check for all transactions. But this is counter-intuitive. Why not insist on only electronic invoices in first place?   If the idea behind not insisting that businesses file electronic invoices and retain the choice of generating physical invoices was to reduce the burden of online compliances, then the requirement of an online e-way bill defeats that objective; that is, businesses would still have to generate e-way bills online with the same data.   A better way forward would have been to insist on all invoices being filed online and using the online invoices as the defacto e-way bill. A simple e-way bill would have been the truck manifest listing the electronic invoice numbers of the goods it is carrying. This would have not even required the vehicle number to be recorded, thereby eliminating the need for updating the vehicle number in the e-waybill every time shipments change trucks.   Trucks are not stopped only by tax-related check- posts. Seventeen different laws regulate the movement of goods in India. Transport-related regulations that check for fitness of the vehicle, overloading, and a host of other transport regulations is one major reason trucks are stopped and inspected. Regulations related to the transport of hazardous goods, forest produce, commodity-specific controls and so on are some of the other reasons why trucks could be stopped or inspected.   Is there a way by which we can move towards an integrated system of checks and inspections? Given the evolution of the GST e-way bill and the development and expansion of the VAHAN database of the ministry of road transport, an integrated system is definitely possible.   VAHAN database has all the relevant data related to the vehicle: fitness certificate, registration, permits, etc. Since all 17.regulations are concerned with either the goods a vehicle is carrying or the vehicle itself, the e-way bill declaration and VAHAN together can serve as a 'comprehensive declaration'.  

How can waiting time of road transport be reduced? Answer in the context of the passage.

(A) By introducing e-way bill for the purpose of declaring movement of goods

(B) By putting in place a national IT system for generation and administration of e-way bills

(C) By overloading the goods carriers for a certain period of time

A)  All (A), (B) and (C)

B)  Only (A) and (B)

C)         Only (B) and (C)

D)         Only (A) and (C)

E)  Only (B)