The government has confirmed their refusal to another extension for the GSTR-3B filing at the last moment. The officials have asked the taxpayers to not wait till the last day. Sushil Kumar Modi, who is the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar and is heading the newly formed group of ministers (GoM) to look into the glitches of the GSTN, said that the dealer’s tendency to rush and file their return on the last day causes the system to crash. The panel confirmed of resolving the crashing issue and not extending the deadline anymore.

The group of ministers met for the first time in Bengaluru on 16th September 2017 to discuss the issues that the dealers have been facing. One of the main agendas of the meeting was to prepare the GST network to handle as many as 300 crore invoices.

The GST Council, which is the highest governing and decision-making body for goods and services laws had earlier last week decided to form a five-member panel of ministers who would look into the technical glitches and the IT issues that were coming up regarding the GSTN. The immediate meeting held by the group of ministers sends out the intentions that the government was not interested in wasting any more time or extending the deadline.

Mr. Sushil Modi also said that though 85 lakh dealers had registered for GST on their network (GSTN), only 3.3 lakh out of these had filed their GSTR-3B for August. For July, till date, only 46 lakh taxpayers have filed their GSTR-3B.

India’s GSTN is the biggest in the world with minimum human intervention. It is an entirely IT-enabled system with the provision of all the filings and audits for GST made online. Since 1st July 2017, more than 22 crores invoices have been filed on the GSTN.

The backbone of the GST, goods and services network had stumbled during the first deadline for filing the returns, which eventually forced the government to extend the last date. Mr. Sushil Modi confirmed that the group of ministers (GoM) would be meeting every 15 days to discuss the matters related to GSTN. Leading IT services firm Infosys is taking care of the IT infrastructure for the GST.

Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, Chhattisgarh Minister of Commercial Taxes Amar Agarwal, Karnataka Agriculture Minister Mr. Krishna Byre Gowda and the Finance Minister of Telangana Etela Rajender are the other members of the GoM.

The next council meeting is scheduled in the early week of October.