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V. Rishi Kumar

Technology can be tax-collection friendly, going by the e-governance initiative of the AP Government.

THERE are two ways a Government can go about to make tax collection yield more money. One is to simply hike the tax and see the kitty swell and the other, more time-consuming and complex one, is to improve internal efficiency in the tax collection mechanism and increase revenues simply by plugging loopholes in tax collection.

The Andhra Pradesh Government has opted for the second approach through a range of IT projects, from simple computerisation to online filing of returns to integrating various check posts of the State Commercial Taxes (CT) Department with the head office through an enterprise-wide integration.

The CT Department has taken up the Impact project (Integrated Management Programme for Automation of Commercial Taxes), which envisages designing integrated check posts, according to the State Minister for Commercial Taxes, K. Vijayarama Rao.

Here IT services will be offered with the objective of facilitating free trade and for the flow/dissemination of trade-related information among all sales tax departments. Having an IT kiosk at check posts, the usual points of sales tax collection, will help real-time transformation of information from the check posts to the CT department.

An interesting feature is that the Government is seeking to rope in private players in this initiative. It has received response from Indian Oil Corporation to develop integrated check posts for the CT Department at IOC's retail outlets and other facilities in the State. IT kiosks at these outlets facilitate online interaction with the CT Department.

Significant tax revenues go undetected due to avoidance. It is this segment of tax loss that the department is eyeing. Technology can help bring in checks and balances into the process of tax collection, the Department feels. While a range of CT check posts have been abolished, some others have been upgraded to serve as one-stop solutions.

Simultaneously, with the Central Government driving State Governments towards the value-added tax (VAT) regime, which has been deferred to April 2003 instead of April 2002 on demand from various States, the State Government has embarked on a project — Vastis — to facilitate this. Vastis, being taken up with the support of the Department for International Development (DFID), UK, and with consultancy by PricewaterhouseCoopers, is to be deployed by Tata Consultancy Services.

The CT Department is in the process of developing an interactive portal — apvatonline.com to be developed by Ram Informatics. The portal enables dealers and the general public to interact with offices of the department, e-registrations, facilitating e-filing of returns, e-payment of taxes through certain designated banks. Also, e-bills can be downloaded from the portal without one having to make the rounds of the CT department.

The CT Department has also embarked on a facilities management initiative wherein HCL Infosystems will manage the Department's systems for a two-year term. The contract includes maintenance of systems, peripherals and other hardware and equipment.

This project is to be integrated with the Integrated Checkposts Projects (ICP) and linked with the head office at Hyderabad. The data relating to these ICPs is now planned to be monitored online from all centres through leased circuits.

To this end, Compact, a check-post module, has been implemented at all integrated check posts in the first phase. It is to be implemented at all border check posts in a phased manner.

Alongside these initiatives, the CT Department is working towards training the manpower in coordination with the Dr. MCR Human Resources Development Institute to facilitate a faster transition to e-governance.

Interestingly, about 90 per cent of the employees for this initiative have been trained as the State Government was gearing to the VAT regime implementation in April 2002.

vrishi@thehindu.co.in

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