Rs 2256 Cr Project Saksham Approved To Integrate GST With Central Board of Excise & Customs’ IT Network

After the legalities of GST (Goods and Services Tax) has been taken care of, it’s the turn of technicalities to be handled. And going by Government of India’s firm steps towards achieving it, GST is all set to be implemented effective April 1, 2017.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved Project Saksham, which will integrate GST with Central Board of Excise and Customs’ (CBEC) IT system. A total of Rs 2256 crore would be spent on this integration, and the initial boost would ensure that the integration allows pan-India roll out of GST before April 1, 2017.

The sum of Rs 2256 crore allocated would be spent in the next 7 years.

PM Modi is himself heading the CCEA, and ensuring that the integration happens swiftly, without any bureaucratic delays.

What Would Be Done Under Project Saksham?

As per the statement from Govt., Project Saksham will integrate various innovations from Ministry of Finance, and bring it under the GST regime. It will link with the Central Board of Excise and Customs’ internal system directly, and enable a uniform way of collecting taxes, pan-India.

Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT), Ease of Doing Business initiative of CBEC and Digital India would be now directly linked with GST based tax structure.

As of now, there are around 36 lakh Indians who pay indirect taxes, which includes tax-payers, exporters, importers, dealers. Once the integration of GST via Project Saksham is completed, this number will go up to 65 lakh.

Via this massive integration, CBEC’s internal database would be directly linked with GST’s portal, which will allow seamless exchange of data related to business registration, payment of taxes, tax-returns and would act as the front end for all cases pertaining to audits, appeals and investigation.

Matters related with customs, central excise and services tax etc would be now directly linked with GST’s regime, thereby forming an integrated and uniform platform for all tax related issues in India.

Yesterday, the first draft of tax filing rules under GST was released by Finance Ministry, which will be discussed at a high level meeting on September 30th.

We will keep you updated as more details come in.