Nationwide EGovernance Projects

1
Nation-wide E-Governance Projects

• The CBEC Experience
• Dharmarajan Krishnan
• Directorate General of Systems
• Customs and Excise

2
Overview

• Background to Customs automation
• E-Governance as an agent for change
• Managing Change
• Integration and Synergy -- the Unfinished agenda
• Keeping pace with law challenge or nightmare?

3
Customs Automation Building Blocks

• Indian Customs EDI System (ICES)
• 32 locations covers 90 of countrys import /
  export declarations
• 4 million transactions in the year 03-04 ( about
  13,500 per day)
• Original source of national trade statistics
• E Commerce Gateway ( ICEGATE)
• Enables e-filing of declarations from the
  premises of importers/ exporters and custom house
  agents (55-60)
• Exchanges information with trading partners like
  banks, custodians, DGFT etc
• Certifying Authority for Digital Signatures
  (iCERT)
• Creates secure environment for e-filing
• Gives legal validity to e-filing

4
Customs Automation Building Blocks

• Risk Management based Clearances
• Facilitate low risk importers and exporters
• Redeploy resources towards better service
  delivery
• Reduce cargo dwell time
• E- payment of Duties
• New Projects on the Anvil
• Automated Clearance of courier consignments in
  partnership with the Express Industry
• Advance Passenger Information System
• Passenger facilitation based on advance
  information
• Addressing national security concerns

5
1. E-Gov as an agent of change

• Workflow based automation of scrutiny,
  assessment, duty payment, examination and release
• Processes re engineered and reduced from 18 to 6
  in Imports, 15 to 5 in Exports.
• Processing of documents on first come - first
  served basis
• Accountability through Time stamping
• System Appraisal for select import goods
• Examination waiver - Green Channel
• Automatic credit of Drawback in the bank
• Concept of outsourced service centres

6
Total Demurrage Vs Number of Shipments(data
by M/s Hewlett Packard)
(In Rs Thousands)
7
TRANSACTION COSTS OF EXPORTS
(Source EXIM Bank of India)
8
ICES Managing Change

• National Rollout
• Core Team visits each site
• Norms for Site Preparation
• Common Hardware / OS / DB Platform
• Site Specific Networking
• Common Systems Integration and Support Strategy
• Site Support
• H/W OS Support
• DB Support
• Application Support

9
ICES Managing Change

• Uniformity in Software
• Common Software
• Local flavours to suit core operational
  variations
• Air, Sea, Land Border, Container Depot
• Strong Version Control at the centre
• Monitor implementation of procedures through
  model public notice
• Uniformity in Procedures
• Send Model Public Notice to the field office
• Vet Draft Public Notice before issue
• Send model updates to the Public Notice

10
2. Integration and Synergy Challenges ahead

• Integrating Regulation across the Value Chain
• Integrating Customs and Excise Processes
• Integrating with corporate systems
• Synergizing with VAT / Income Tax
• Tax Compliance throughout the Value Chain for
  excisable goods.
• Tax Compliance with respect to imported goods
• Link with Income Tax returns.
• Analysing combined tax incidence on commodities
• Reducing Compliance Costs for Assessees

11
Integration and Synergy Essentials

• Essentials for better Synergy with VAT
• Common Business Identifier
• Standardized 11 digit TIN for all the States
• Linkage with PAN for Center-State Synergy
• Common goods classification code
• Adoption of HSN based classification for VAT
  implementation
• Continuation of classification code throughout
  supply chain
• Standardization of Data Elements
• Standardization of data elements
• Standardization of unit codes
• Standardization of reporting

12
3. Keeping pace with law

• Goods classifiable into nearly 12000 tariff
  sub-headings
• 45 types of Import Duties
• 14 types of export duties
• Around 30 types of excise duties
• Each duty has its own means of calculation
• One of more types of duty applicable
• Notifications run into hundreds
• apply to combinations of tariff heads and duty
  types
• may prescribe their own methods of calculation
  and valuation
• multiple notifications may be simultaneously
  applicable
• may have conditions
• may cross-reference each other

13
Keeping pace with law

• Policy changes can happen anytime and change
  anything
• Policy changes need to be implemented overnight
• Multiple agencies have their own structures of
  levying taxes and framing policy
• Handling annual budget can be a major problem
• When we integrate we are exporting the problem to
  trade and industry
• Can we do better?

14
Keeping pace with law - solutions

• Vet laws for e-friendliness
• Take Systems designers into confidence
• Design templates get templates approved by
  policy makers and law ministry
• Give lead time to industry
• Bring clarity and simplicity to law formulation

15
New Excise Application

• E-Registration for excise and service tax
• E-filing of returns and refunds
• Payment Information from Banks
• Integration of e-filing with Risk based Scrutiny
• Export facilitation through linkages between
  Excise and Customs