The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) has signed two Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with Karnataka’s Commercial Taxes Department. The first agreement is to undertake a three-year capacity building programme for CTD officers in IIMB. The second is a collaborative MoU for Big Data Analytics in tax administration.

With these agreements, the department hopes to make tax administration more data-driven, besides injecting professionalism in tax administration.

Prof Arnab Mukherji of IIMB, said, “GST is a new era of commercial tax administration that calls for a dynamic and proactive administration authority. The training MoU will bring the best of ideas and practice, and focus on change among officers at CTD, to constructively manage the ever-changing status quo in commercial tax collection.”

M S Srikar, Karnataka Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, said: “Equipping our officers to effectively implement and spearhead GST implementation requires a well-designed and holistic capacity building programme. Our association with IIM Bangalore to create and implement such a programme was highly successful in 2018-19. Based on these learnings, we are excited to enter into an MoU with IIMB for a comprehensive GST training programme for our senior and middle-level officers.”

In the backdrop of the introduction of GST, there was a need to upgrade the skills of officers of the CTD, as the new law was totally IT driven.

Usage of technological innovation, business analytics, data driven decision making skills and management of tax administration professionally were the need of the hour.

IIMB was approached by CTD in May 2018 to handle and impart management development skills, Big Data Analytics, revenue forecasts, preparation of watertight investigations, reinvention, transformation and other critical areas of empowerment required to upgrade the skills of the officers.

Thereafter, IIMB trained 123 senior management-level officers during the current financial year. The state government has approved training of 360 officers over the next three years. To undertake the Capacity Building Programme with module-based training to further their economic perspective, and to enhance the managerial ability and efficiency of the officers of the CTD, IIMB would design and conduct training programmes for CTD officers. One of the important learnings from IIMB has been the importance of Big Data analytics in tax administration.

IMMB’s expertise in Big Data Analytics, NIC’s software skills and CTDs domain knowledge could form a symbiotic relationship to achieve the desired objectives. Karnataka has permitted CTD to undertake Big Data Analytics on GST data, to gain insights in collaboration with IIMB.

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