The GST Council will, on Saturday, discuss the rollout of the e-way bill from January 1, as concerns mount over possible tax evasion during inter-State sales.

Sources said the GST Council, chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, will hold a meeting through video conferencing, where he will also discuss additional measures to encourage compliance and plug tax leakages. The move comes soon after GST collections registered a sharp drop to ₹83,346 crore in October, against ₹92,000 crore in September.

Earlier this month, Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia had met State and Central tax officers to discuss possible strategies to curb tax evasion and boost revenue collections under GST.

On Thursday, Jammu and Kashmir Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu had called for early implementation of the e-way bill due to high revenue leakages in the State. Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi had said that the e-way bill may be implemented in a staggered manner across the country from early next year.

Under GST, movement of goods costing over ₹50,000 beyond 10 km requires prior registration and generation of an e-way bill through the GST Network to track inter- and intra-State movement.

Tech preparation While GST was rolled out on July 1 this year, the GST Council had decided to defer e-way bill implementation to March 31 next year, due to lack of technological preparations.

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is implementing the project, based on a similar project it had carried out earlier in Karnataka. Initial test runs in Karnataka, which was already using a similar system, have been smooth, according to officials.

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