Government has given a big relief from previous compliance burden on the road transport sector, especially courier and e-commerce logistics companies. In a recent amendments in the e-way bill, the government has significantly addressed concerns of e-commerce logistics, courier, cargo companies and startups, especially regarding generation of e-way bills.

In past, e-way bill has to be generated every time companies ship something worth more than Rs 50,000 and beyond a distance of 10 km.

Now, as per the revised norms, e-way bill generation will not be required for each consignment in case of intra-state movement of goods through e-commerce or courier companies where the value of each consignment is less than Rs 50,000 but the aggregate value is greater than Rs 50,000.

Further, the revised policy has also extended the relaxation on the requirement of updating vehicle details for intra-state movement to 50 km from 10 km earlier.

The revised draft policy on the generation of e-way bills released by the Central Board of Excise and Customs on March 7, according to rating agency Icra, will benefit small businesses and startups that operate on intra-state basis and the less than truckload (LTL) operators. LTL is the transportation of relatively small freight.

So far, the e-way bill system has been rolled out in 10 states, including Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. However, there are also challenges in terms of execution, according to the logistics companies.

The above development was first reported in India.com.

For a long time, since GST implemented nationally in July last year, a cohort of logistics startups such as Delhivery wants to make sure that before implementing e-way bill all sectors within the logistics industry are represented well and their concerns and issues are addressed by the government.

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According to audit firm KPMG, the size of India’s ecommerce-focussed logistics sector is estimated to expand to about $2.2 billion by 2020, from about $460 million in 2016. The growth of India’s ecommerce sector, projected to reach $80 billion by 2020, hinges on e-commerce-focussed logistics, a critical factor in driving differentiation and customer satisfaction.

Last year, Flipkart and Amazon India accounts for about 70% of all ecommerce shipments in the country. In January, Flipkart invested around $408 million in its logistics arm Ekart. While, PayTM's e-commerce arm Paytm Mall invested $35 million in logistics and tech, in August last year.

Kishore Biyani's Future Group acquired Snapdeal's logistics arm Vulcan Express for ₹35 crore, in January this year. While, Zomato bought logistics firm Sparse Labs in 2016, to improve delivery service for its users.

A number of ecommerce-focussed logistics startups are operating in the country. Some are, Delhivery, XpressBees, Jugnoo, Shadowfax, Fareye, Loadshare and Qikship.

Additionally, in September last year, Maritime Services (MWS) launched its very first maritime focused logistics technology startup incubator, which is also India's first logistics startup incubator.
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