Gandhinagar/Ahmedabad/Vadodara: The abolishing of 16 permanent and 50 notified commercial tax check-posts on the borders of Gujarat along with hundreds of such check posts across the country after the roll out of Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, has made the transporters in the state ‘happy’ but they want some more reforms and awareness for more smoother flow of road cargo traffic.

The transporters also complained about steep drop in business post implementation of GST, mainly owing to protests and teething issues.

Joint Commissioner (Check-Post) of Gujarat R R Patel today said that of the 16 border check posts of ‘VAT era’, the maximum 6 were on Rajasthan border including the ones in Amirgadh, Shamlaji, Tharad, Thavar and Ambaji. Two were on Madhya Pradesh border in Dahod and Jhalod, 4 on Maharashtra border including the ones at Kaprada, Bhilad and Songadh, 3 were with adjoining union territories an one internal at Shamkhiyali.

‘All of these and other notified 50 for the places where there were no permanent check-posts have been abolished with the advent of GST regime,’ he said.

Transporters were in general happy about the closing down of check-posts which would save a good deal of time for a long distance trip.

Proprietor of Narol based Ahmedabad Transport Service Surendra Chaudhary today said, ‘PM Modi has taken a very good measure by implementing GST which has resulted in the doing away with the border check-posts. It would on an average save at least one hour per check-post which for a long trip would be like saving a few days but we are afraid that despite the good intentions of the PM, who himself is a very honest man, the corrupt system at the lower level would now try to find ways to compensate for the ‘loss’ (taking bribe from truck-drivers for clearances at check posts). We also want some kind of arrangement for doing away with RTO check-posts too which waste a lot of time of transporters,’ he said

Vadodara based Transporter and owner of Delhi Baroda Road lines, Suresh Sharma said that he was happy with the doing away with the check-posts but was concerned about the drop in business soon after implementation of GST.

‘It is good but since June 30 we are not getting any business. After the implementation of GST, owing to ambiguity and initial issues goods were not moving in the quantity they did before the new tax regime. Our business has been badly affected. Once it recovers the abolishing of check posts would surely benefit us,’ he said.

Another Vadodara based Transporter and owner of Shivani Trailer Services, Amit Pandey said that the need of the hour was to create more awareness about the benefits of GST like the abolishing of border check posts among common transporters.
‘Certainly the closure of commercial tax check posts on borders would save our time and keep us away from the difficulty of long-wait and putting our vehicles in queues and also greasing the palms of staffs there,’ he said.

Notably, so far as many as 22 states including Gujarat, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand. have done away with the border commercial check-posts and 8 states including Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Punjab, Mizoram and Tripura are in the process of abolishing their check posts in the wake of the implementation of the GST which is also dubbed as one nation one tax regime.

DeshGujarat