The Budget 2018 will be announced later today, but February 1st will mark the addition of the E-way bill that is likely to drastically reduce transport times for logistic vehicles. According to the E-way bill, to be generated under the Goods and Services Tax or the GST. All inter-state movement of goods valued at over Rs. 50,000 will have to have an E-Way bill certificate, allowing them to move freely between borders without having to stop at interstate borders.
Now the E-way bill itself is a triple threat in some ways, not only  does the bill intend to help reduce the rate of evasion at state borders, it will also help to reduce logistics times by upto 30% by mitigating congestion at state borders.The officials said that during the 14 day trial period starting from January 17, transporters have generated 28.4 lakh e-way bills, with 3.4 lakh of these being generated on January 30 alone. During this period, 11,581 transporters registered themselves under the system. Now the E-Way bill has been in the making ever since the GST was implemented on July 1st last year. But was put on hold for the GST stabilised post the roll-out.All states and union territories, except Lakshadweep, have joined the e-way bill system, according to the GST Network (GSTN) officials here, while 13 states have signed up for the intra-state part of the system.
The effect of the bill however, will be slightly more interesting. For one, transporters in India have (in the past) shied away from bigger vehicles, for the simple reason that this meant getting fleeced at Toll booths which charged transporters per axle on their trucks. Often making it cheaper for transporters to use multiple smaller truck in their route. With the implementation of the E-Way bill, which covers almost all goods above 50,000 as one standard unit, transporters might tend to bigger trucks to make their journey cheaper  and making our highways less crowded.
We expect the implementation of this bill to once again bring back the big Semi to India. Now it will be interesting to see whether this will bring in more international manufacturers like Scania, Volvo, Man or whether Indian manufacturers like Tata with the Prima and Mahindra with the Navi Star, will return to this space.
