Confusion, glitches mark Day 1 of GST celebration

Website crashes due to heavy traffic, traders failed to log in to the portal State finance officials claim GST portal was facing technical issues since April

On Day 1 of GST only big retail chains, supermarkets, hotels and restaurants etc could roll out GST-compliant bills.

All the checkposts in states collecting commercial taxes were closed as tax rates became uniform in all states leaving no scope for tax evasion in the GST regime.

To enthuse consumers on Day 1, big retail chains and shopping malls conducted “GST Muhurat Trading” offering huge discounts up to 30 per cent.

Kirana stores and neighbourhood shops continued to issue handwritten bills.

For some, VAT still existed as they issued bills with old VAT rates. For most of the shops in the unorganised sectors in the city, it was business as usual without mention of GST.

GST benefits were not passed on to the consumers.

Most businesses including big ones, faced billing issues as they failed to update their software to factor in new GST tax rates, which led to arguments between staff and consumers in stores.

The GSTN website has been facing technical problems since April, unable to cope with the huge demand. The registration window was closed for some days in May and June and recently opened again on June 25

— OFFICIAL Finance department

The rollout of GST on Saturday was marred by technical glitches in the GST Network (GSTN) on Day-1, the IT infrastructure and service backbone of the new tax regime which enables capture, processing and exchange of data between Centre, States, RBI and tax officials.

The websites of GST Network (GSTN) and GST crashed due to heavy traffic. All those who registered for GST were required to download Excel template from these websites and upload sales data on the GST portal.

However, traders and businesses faced a tough time while downloading Excel sheets as websites crashed. Over 65 lakh traders have registered for GST so far across the country and there is still a backlog of nearly 20 lakh.

The websites failed to cater to the huge rush on Day-1 as a large number of traders tried but couldn’t log on to the websites to download data and to gather information.

In fact traders tried to log on to the websites multiple times, in vain. The officials of state government, especially in the finance, commercial taxes departments too tried to log on to GSTN to track the transactions on Day-1. The websites encountered frequent problems due to heavy traffic. However, the technical glitch was rectified by evening. With the rollout of GST from Saturday, there was also a huge rush to register for GST from traders who failed to engage in registration so far.

In TS alone, there is still a backlog of nearly 14 per cent amounting to nearly 65,000 traders, while it is nearly 20 lakh across the country.

With GSTN being the only platform to register for GST, it witnessed a huge rush on Day-1. “The GSTN website has been facing technical problems since April, unable to cope with the huge demand. The registration window was closed for some days in May and June and recently opened again on June 25. However, with the rollout of GST on July 1, it witnessed unprecedented rush from lakhs of traders across the country who registered for GST and tried to log on to the website to download Excel sheets and seek other details,” said an official of the finance department.

The state government too interlinked treasuries and commercial taxes department with RBI and GSTN to track the transactions on a day-to-day basis.