Srinagar, June 20: A meeting of monitoring and review Committee for VAT computerization of the Commercial Taxes Department of J&K and Himachal Pradesh States was held under the Chairmanship of Satish Chandra, Member Secretary of Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers at Srinagar on 19th of June,2012 .
 The Committee members also visited the Excise & Taxation Complex at Solina to personally take stock of the implementation of the project on the ground. The department of the Commercial Taxes of the two States together with M/s TCS, the implementation partners and M/s PWC, the consultants of project gave joint presentation to the Committee. Various aspects of the implementation and the issues regarding Roll out of the project were discussed at length.
 The Committee later on briefed Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather about the progress of the project.   Committee explained that project of computerization of the Department of Commercial Taxes of Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh was being implemented by the Empowered Committee of State Finance Minister with an overall cost of Rs.40.49 crores out of which Rs.25.33 crores was being provided by Government of India and the rest by the two States.
 The share of Jammu & Kashmir State including the maintenance cost of the entire project for five years amounted to Rs.7.4 crores.
 The members informed the Minister that a State of Data Centre has already been put in place in Excise & Taxation complex of the State at Jammu and the same has been connected to various offices of the Department throughout the State with a powerful  Commercial Taxes Wide Area Network (CTWAN) acquire from BSNL. While expressing satisfaction on the overall progress of the project the Committee requested  Finance Minister to start the dealer friendly measures like grant of e-registration, filing of e-returns and facilitation of e-payments through multiple banks.
 It was observed that an important aspect of the project regarding creation of Disaster Recovery site needed to be attended on priority.
 The representative of Government of India offered to consider finding of this aspect together with additional demands of the project under MMP-CT programme of Government of India.
 Finance Minister assured the Committee that the computerization of the Commercial Taxes Department of Jammu & Kashmir is being treated as a flagship e- Governance Project in Jammu & Kashmir State and the project was formally initiated by the Chief Minister himself in December 2010.
 He assured that all help whatever required in making this project a success shall be provided by the State Government of so that transparent, dealer friendly and hassle free services are provided to the dealers and other Stakeholders promptly.
 Earlier Kifayat Hussain Rizvi, Commissioner Commercial taxes thanked the Chairman of the Committee for fixing up the meeting at Srinagar and to personally observe the implementation of the project on ground.     Besides, Satish Chandra and Kifayat Hussain Rizvi the meeting was also attended by Kamlesh Kumar pant, Director State Taxes GOI, J. C. Sharma, Commissioner Commercial Taxes Himachal Pradesh; P. I. Khateeb, Additional Commissioner Commercial Taxes, State Project Coordinator, Showkat Aijaz, Deputy  Commissioner Commercial Taxes J&K  V.P.Gupta, Sr. administrative officer empowered committee,  V. K. Malhotra, administrative officer empowered committee,  Tanmoy Chakraboraty, government solution global head tata consultancy service Pankjaj Gupta, Project Head Tata Consultancy Services  Rahul Mullick, Executive Director, PWC  and Anurag Sirivasta, Sr. Consultant PWC.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 20 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
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