Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Government of India
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA)
28September2016 14:51 IST
Cabinet approves 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
‘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.2256 crore which will be incurred over a period of seven years.
It will help in:
• implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST),
• extension of the Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) and
• other taxpayerfriendly initiatives under Digital India and Ease of Doing Business of Central Board of Excise
and Customs.
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/lmporters/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 frontend for other
modules like Audit, Appeal, Investigation. There is no overlap in the GSTrelated systems of CBEC and GSTN.
This IT infrastructure is also urgently required for continuation of CBEC's eServices 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 ENivesh, ETaal, eSign.
Background:
Introduction of GST will result in a severalfold increase in the number of taxpayers and resultant document load
on the system. CBEC's current IT system was set up in 2008. It cannot cater to the increased load under GST
without an immediate upgrade of its IT Infrastructure. Further, CBEC has implemented the Indian Customs
Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) and is integrating other partner agencies involved in
Customs clearance in order to make the process simple and fast. 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. Taxpayers have to be given a facility for Upload of Digitally Signed Scanned
Documents in order to reduce the physical interface with tax authorities and to increase the speed of clearance.
CBEC also aims to introduce mobile services for taxpayers and departmental users to increase the outreach of its
services.
******
AKT/VBA/SH