Actual movement of goods under a supply is tracked through e-waybill. Every person carrying the goods is required to carry an e-way bill where the value of goods exceeds the prescribed value.
While generating E-waybill, either the person generating the e-waybill or the transporter are required to enter Vehicle Number of the vehicle which will be carrying the goods. In cases of any change in vehicle during movement, vehicle number is required to be updated in e-waybill.
However, in certain cases where bogus invoices are generated, taxpayer generates e-waybill without actual movement of goods and enters incorrect vehicle number.
To ensure correctness of vehicle number, the Government has linked the e-way bill system with the VAHAN portal for cross checking the vehicle Registration Number on a real time basis at the time of generating E-way bills. In other words the E-way Bill system will show error and does not generate an E-way bill if the vehicle is not registered on the VAHAN Portal.
Before moving forward let’s see what the VAHAN Portal and E-way bill system is used for.
1. What is VAHAN portal?
VAHAN Portal is the portal of Transport Department which has details of all registered vehicles with the registration number, vehicle no. and the Chassis number of the vehicle. The system allows nation wise search of the vehicles.
The VAHAN portal helps the vehicle owner with multiple facilities which are:-
- Vehicle Registration
- Road tax calculation and payment
- Issue and renewal permits
- Issue and renewal of fitness certificate
- Issuance and settlement of challan, etc.
2. What is an e-waybill Portal?
E-way Bill System is an online system for generating electronic Transport bills for moving goods from one place to another. It is mandatory for a GST registered person to generate E-way bill if the goods he is transporting has the value exceeds Rs.50000. It consists of 2 parts as follows:
- Part A, details such as recipient GSTN, place of delivery, invoice of challan number and date, HSN Code etc.
- Part B, comprises transporter details, this part must be filled to generate the e-way bill.
3. What is the process of verification of vehicle number from VAHAAN portal?
As soon as, transporter or supplier/recipient enters the Vehicle Number in Part-B of Waybill, e-waybill portal verifies the correctness of vehicle number from VAHAAN Portal and E-waybill portal will alert the taxpayer about discrepancy in vehicle number.
4. Possible Errors in Vehicle Number while generating Eway Bill
a. Non-availability of Vehicle Number
If the vehicle is not registered in the VAHAN system then an Alert Message will be shown and it is not available. In that case, the transporter will be required to get his Vehicle registered in the Regional Transport Office (“RTO”).
In case of non updation of vehicle number in VAHAAN Database, system will not allow generation of e-waybill with same vehicle number after sometime.
b. Vehicle registered in more than one RTO
When an error message shows that your vehicle is registered in more than one RTO then the Transporter needs to visit the concerned RTO and apply for updation of the office. Once the office address is updated, the system will not show this error message.
However, if records are not updated then after sometime the system will mark vehicle number as non-existent and will not allow generation of e-waybill with the same vehicle number.
c. Details are not updated on VAHAAN Portal
If Vehicle number is registered with VAHAAN portal and the system still shows “Alert Message” then a transporter is required to update Vehicle details in the RTO.
d. Temporary Vehicle numbers
when the e-way bill is generated with the Temporary vehicle number (of the newly purchased vehicle) the person generating it must enter the vehicle number by adding TR in the starting of the vehicle number.
e. Details are available on VAHAAN portal but not on e-waybill portal
If details of Vehicle are available on VAHAAN portal, however, e-waybill portal shows that vehicle number as not available then concerned person is required raise a grievance with e-waybill helpdesk.
4. How can Vehicle Number be verified on VAHAAN portal?
Vahan System provides a nationwide search over the digitized data of Registered Vehicles. Details of vehicle number can be checked in https://vahan.nic.in/nrservices/faces/user/searchstatus.xhtml.
5. Conclusion
The GST has taken one more initiative to make the system more trusted and verified in an instant manner, the e-way bill system has linked to VAHAN portal for cross checking of Transporter Authenticity to generate E-way bills. It makes the process of checking Transporter details by merely just entering the vehicle number (in part B of e-way bill generation portal) and if the vehicle is not registered in the Transport authority then it will show an alert message.
