Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Feb 10, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Feb 10, 2006 |
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Government
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E-Governance Industry & Economy - Income Tax Airtel completes phase 1 of I-T Dept tech initiative — To connect I-T offices in 510 cities Our Bureau
Mr Akhil Gupta (left), Joint Managing Director of Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, with Mr J.G. Pendse, Member, Income-Tax (Investigation and Computerisation), at a press conference in the Capital on Thursday. - Kamal Narang
New Delhi , Feb. 9 AIRTEL Enterprise Services, the business division of Bharti Tele-Ventures has completed the first phase of the Rs 240-crore e-governance project that will connect 745 Income-Tax Department offices in 510 cities through an optical fibre cable network. Through this project called TAXNET, 13,000 employees of the department will be able to access centralised database and solutions like video conferencing facility. In the first phase of the five-year project, Airtel will connect 170 Income-Tax Department locations across the country. The deal was signed between Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd and the Income-Tax Department, Department of Revenue - Ministry of Finance. On completion, the TAXNET will be India's largest-ever virtual private network (VPN) connecting all the income-tax offices in 510 cities on the Bharti backbone. Airtel has partnered IBM for implementing the project.
E-returns: A press release fronm Bharti said, "With all department locations getting networked, it will be possible to connect the offices of the Income-Tax Department to the National Data Centre on a common centralised database scheduled for roll out in June 2006. "This will enable faster processing of returns and reduction in time cycles for issue of refunds and increase in efficiency and collections. Taxpayers will also benefit from the project and in future will be able to file electronic tax returns." Airtel is implementing the project on build-own-operate basis with an uptime of 99 per cent on end-to-end basis extending from PC node up to National Data Centre and will ensure secure encrypted data flow. The locations will be connected using a combination of fibre, copper and VSATs. The Directorate of Income-Tax (Systems) along with the project consultants Ernst & Young - NSE.iT consortium had conceived the project as part of its Information Technology drive. The network design has been vetted and approved by the technical committee of the I-T Department, which comprises scientist Prof. Kirshnamurthy from Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, Prof R.K. Arora from IIT Delhi, Ex- Director Technical, Indian Airlines, and DGM (Systems) from EIL. Airtel was chosen for the project from an initial list of 11 bidders based on its technology offering. Under the project Airtel will undertake migration of existing network to the optical fibre backbone and establishment of new network, 24X7 monitoring and management of the network. An additional 1,100 km of fibre is being deployed for the project along with up to 120 MPLS nodes for linking the various I-T locations. Airtel will also supply, install and manage the communication rooms, including the environmental control equipment such as UPS, A/Cs for the duration of the contract. This will ensure single point of responsibility for overall delivery of network services, the release said.
More Stories on : E-Governance | Income Tax | Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd
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