The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the prime minister Narendra Modi has approved Rs 2,256 crore for 'Project SAKSHAM', a new indirect tax network (Systems Integration) of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).
The total project cost involved is Rs 2,256 crore which will be incurred over a period of seven years.
Project SAKSHAM will help in implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST), extension of the Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT); and other taxpayer-friendly initiatives under Digital India and Ease of Doing Business of CBEC.
The implementation strategy for the project will be to ensure readiness of CBEC's IT systems by April, 1, 2017, when GST is to be introduced. The upgrade of the IT systems will be carried out while keeping the existing tax-payer services running.
All taxpayers/importers/exporters/dealers under various indirect tax laws administered by CBEC - presently about 36 lakhs, likely to go up to over 65 lakhs after introduction of GST.
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 CBEC, as well as 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.
This IT infrastructure is also urgently required for continuation of CBEC's e-Services in Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax, implementation of tax¬payer services such as scanned document upload facility, extension of Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) initiative and integration with Government initiatives such as E-Nivesh, E-Taal, e-Sign.
Introduction of GST will result in a several-fold increase in the number of taxpayers and resultant document load on the system as CBEC's current IT system was set up in 2008 and it cannot cater to the increased load under GST without an immediate upgrade of its IT Infrastructure.
The Customs EDI system which is currently operational at about 140 locations in India has to be extended to many more locations with improved response time and better service delivery. CBEC also aims to introduce mobile services for taxpayers and departmental users to increase the outreach of its services.
