The Cabinet has approved the administrative and financial sanction towards the implementation of the Project SAKSHAM. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved it.
What is it?
It is a New Indirect Tax Network (Systems Integration) of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC). It is mainly for upgrading the information technology systems of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).
The CBEC, the government’s indirect tax wing, will revamp its eight-year-old information technology system on its own, and integrate its system with that of the GST network.
What are the objectives of the project?
It will help in implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST),extension of the Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) andwill help other taxpayer-friendly initiatives under Digital IndiaAnd ease of doing Business of Central Board of Excise and Customs.
What is the total cost of the project?
The total project cost involved is Rs.2256 crore. The cost of the project will be spread over seven years. The project will help in integration of systems for the entire indirect tax system.
Advantages:
The government estimates that the number of taxpayers administered by the CBEC will increase to over 6.5 million from the current 3.6 million in a GST regime.The upgrade of the IT systems will be carried out while keeping the existing Tax-payer services running.CBEC's IT systems need to integrate with the Goods & Services Tax Network (GSTN) for processing of registration, payment and returns data sent by GSTN systems to CBECThe IT systems will also act as a front-end for other modules like Audit, Appeal, and Investigation.There is no overlap in the GST-related systems of CBEC and GSTN.
Way forward:
There is a need for an immediate upgrade of CBEC’s IT Infrastructure. The implementation of the Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) and integrating other partner agencies involved in Customs clearance will make the process simple and fast.
The Customs EDI system is to be extended to more locations with improved response time and better service delivery. Even mobile services for taxpayers and departmental users are to be introduced. Taxpayers will be given a facility for Upload of Digitally Signed Scanned Documents also. It will also increase the speed of clearance.
