Union Cabinet approves implementation of project 'SAKSHAM'

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday 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.

The project 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 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 the 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, are likely to go up to over 65 lakhs after introduction of GST.

CBEC's IT systems need to integrate with the Goods and 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, Investigation.

There is no overlap in the GST-related systems of CBEC and GSTN.

This IT infrastructure will also help in the continuation of CBEC's e-Services in Customs, Central Excise and 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.