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43 more cities in pan-India I-T network

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CIOL Bureau
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NEW DELHI: Forty-three more cities will be included in the nationwide network by Dec. 31 this year, as part of the comprehensive computerization in the Income Tax department.

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Minister of State for Finance SS Palanimanickam told the Rajya Sabha today that earlier, 60 Indian cities were networked on leased line basis technology.

Subsequently, it was decided to establish a single national database whereby other 450 cities would also be put on the network, the replied to a question raised by Ekanath K Thakur.

To establish a single national database, Internet Protocol based Virtual Private Network (IP-VPN) technology was adopted and a contract was entered with Bharti Airtel Ltd in October 2005 for connecting 745 buildings of the Income Tax Department located in 510 cities (including 219 buildings in 60 cities which were earlier networked on leased line basis). More cities would also be on network in the coming months, Palanimanickam said.

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Comprehensive computerisation in the Income Tax Department, initiated during 1994-`95 is an ongoing project. The creation of a nationwide network is one of its components. The Department has made considerable progress, in the allotment of permanent account number, tax accounting, processing of returns, filing of TDS returns and annual information returns.

One of the recent successful initiatives has been compulsory electronic filing of return by corporate taxpayers.

For networking, Income Tax Department has so far paid a sum of Rs 19.83 crores to Bharti Airtel Ltd, out of the total sum of Rs 240 crores (excluding Service Tax) to be paid over a period of five years.

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