Data from GSTN, the company that processes Goods and Services Tax (GST) related returns, showed e-way bill generation in April fell by about 7% from March but still remained close to the monthly average seen in the March quarter.

It was expected that companies might slow down a bit in pushing inventory into the supply chain in the first month of the new financial year after the year-end surge in goods shipment led to record GST receipts of ₹1.87 trillion in April. However, April figures show that the manufacturing sector's momentum continues.

Separately, another high-frequency indicator reflecting manufacturing and mining activity—freight loading of Indian Railways—improved annually by 3.5% in April to 126 tonnes with a 7% growth in freight revenue, the ministry of railways said in a statement on Monday.

S&P Global had said last Monday, citing its manufacturing purchase managers' index, that factory orders and production had risen at the strongest rates in 2023 so far in April, more jobs were created, and companies stepped up input purchasing owing to stock-replenishment efforts. There was a record expansion in inventories of inputs in April, the private survey that tracks 400 producers across different industries said then.

Experts see robust e-way bill generation in spite of the anticipated slight softening from the level seen in March as indicative of the economy's strength.

"The data on e-way bills being higher than that for similar periods in earlier years is indicative of the economic resilience demonstrated over the past year, as evidenced by the robust GST collections during FY23," said M.S. Mani, a partner at Deloitte India.

Sector-specific issues like base effect and pricing played out in the automobile industry after record sales in FY23. The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations said last Thursday that the new financial year kicked off with modest vehicle retail performance with a 4% decline in total vehicle retails.