Income tax process to go online

Pragati Simlote

NEW DELHI: The central government has sanctioned Rs 1000 cr to the income tax department (ITD) to bring the entire income tax process online.

The current IT initiatives of ITD include centralization and consolidation of all its 36 regional computer centers. “We are planning to consolidate all centers into a single national database in Delhi. We are also building a business continuity site at Mumbai and a cold disaster recovery site at Chennai. TCS is our implementation partner for this project, which is expected to be rolled out by April 2006,” said BB Nanawati, commissioner of income tax (systems).

The IT department is also setting up an all India IT network (TAXNET). Under this network, connectivity would be provided through IPVPN in 510 cities and 745 income tax offices.

Currently, the IT department has 800 offices, out of which only 150 are on the network. Nanawati said, “The Bharti-IBM combine will connect income tax offices through optic fiber networks and provide last mile connectivity. The project is expected to be completed by March 2006.”

The department is also changing its legacy system of filing income tax online. TCS, its implementation partner of the application migration project, is building a three-tier web-based application for filing returns online. When implemented, approximately 13,000 people across India are expected to use this application.

National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) is establishing the Tax Information Network (TIN) as a repository of tax-related information on behalf of Income Tax Department (ITD). TIN has three key sub-systems Electronic Return Acceptance and Consolidation System (ERACS), Online Tax Accounting System (OLTAS) and Central PAN Ledger Generation System (CPLGS).

TIN will also provide an Internet-based view of upload statistics of e-TDS/TCS statements and PAN account details as per Form 26AS.

According to Nanawati, data produced from TIN, web-enabled services, extended applications and internal applications is expected to touch 52 terabyte in five years. “For efficient management of data, the department plans to create and enterprise wide data warehouse with effective business intelligence. The data warehousing business intelligence project is in an advance stage with the ITD having identified three key players. The department would choose one among them to outsource the implementation and the roll out is expected by April-May 2006.”

Nanawati also informed that the department is also planning to appoint a system integrator shortly apart from appointing a facilities manager for a period of five years.