New Delhi, Nov 30 (KNN) With the Goods and Services Tax (GST) entering its sixth month since the roll out in July, the transport sector that ferries good along the roadways are far from a smooth ride as corruption and harassment along the highways continue.

Talking to KNN, Naveen Kumar Gupta, Secretary General All India Motor Transport Congress informed of the situation of the sector.

He said that the  early period of implementation, i.e July and August witnessed a lot of chaos in the market. With the stakeholders getting familiar with the taxation, things are beginning to fall in place.

He however raised concerns over the prevailing complications in compliance and the existing corruption problems.

He said that the GST was supposed to eliminate the checkposts operated by commercial tax officials but commercial checkposts are still operational in states like Jammu & Kashmir  and Himachal and RTO and police officials continue to harass the truck drivers and extort money.

He also said that the FCM mechanism with involves 12 % tax rate with ITC has blocked working capital of many operators as  working capital loan is not available easily to the operators .

Gupta suggested that the government should make a helpline for truckers so that they could report against harassment.

According to him GST should also be levied on diesel as it accounts for 70 percent of the operational cost and issues like double taxation and problems of ITC should be addressed immediately by the government.

On the issue of e-way bill which requires movement of goods above Rs 50,000 to be pre-registered online, he said that e-way bill which is designed to avoid tax evasion  will have positive impact but small transport operators will suffer as they are illiterate and are  not tech savvy, Gupta added. (KNN/AG)