India’s 6th largest IT company, Larsen & Toubro Infotech, which is the technology arm of $35 billion worth Larsen & Toubro (L&T), has bagged the official contract to create the technology and platform to nab tax evaders, using social media.
We had earlier speculated that L&T maybe the company which has been chosen to deliver this massive responsibility. But now, it is official.
L&T Infotech chief executive and managing director Sanjay Jalona said, “That is really advanced analytics. Now, that is like a $100-million deal for us. It’s not a small deal.”
L&T will now work for Project Insight, which is Indian Govt.’s ambitious plan to catch those who are avoiding taxes but are active on social media, flaunting their wealth and spends.
What L&T Will Exactly Do?
We know the intentions of the Govt., and their objectives. But how will L&T achieve that?
It seems semantic web is the answer.
As per statements issued by Sanjay, it seems that L&T will use semantic web to create specific and highly detailed profiles of every person, who is using Internet.
And then, this profiling would be used to pin down the tax evaders, after matching the expenditures and the tax filed. In other words, L&T will create a combination of Google and Facebook, meant only for searching tax evaders in India.
Sanjay said, “We are creating a systematic web on a person. If his wife is going to the Seychelles and putting photos on Instagram, we will capture it … that is really advanced analytics”, adding, that this is a “high volume digital deal” , provided by Central Board of Direct Taxes.
What Exactly Is Semantic Web?
Semantic Web is an extension of the World Wide Web, validated through standards by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and the term was coined by founder of the web, Tim Berners-Lee.
As per W3C, “The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries”
In layman terms, Semantic Web creates protocols, and platforms, which can be understood, read, processed and analyzed by the machines. Common data formats and languages are used to create this alternate world of information, whose applications have been witnessed in industrial production, biology and human sciences research.
But, most probably for the first time, a semantic web would be created for mining social media data of millions of Indians.
Will L&T be able to dig out tax evaders using semantic web? Is Rs 1000 crore Project Insight feasible?
We will keep you updated as we receive more information.