The Orissa government will introduce the e-filing of returns and e-challan for the dealers in the state starting from 1 January, 2010. The finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai has approved a proposal in this regard. Initially, this will be launched as a pilot project using the portal of the State Bank of India (SBI) and the system is proposed to be expanded to all the areas of the state later, Ghadai told the media.
Sources said, the Commercial Tax department and the directorate of treasuries and inspection are in the process of developing separate portals to facilitate e-payment of taxes and e-challan. Once the process is completed, it will be possible for traders and other people to pay different taxes and government fees routed through the treasuries through these portals. It may be noted, the directorate of treasuries and inspection is working on a plan to issue ‘electronic receipt’ for government taxes and fees.
The Computer Maintenance Corporation Ltd (CMC), the software developer for Orissa Treasury Management System (OTMS), has already been roped in to execute the project. Under the proposed system, there will not be any restriction on access and effort will be made to make the system as simple as possible. The new system will enable the dealers to file the return and pay the tax from their own offices.
Stating that out of 1,24,906 dealers in the state, only 47 percent of the dealers are filing return, he said, 53 percent dealers are defaulters. Keeping that in view, the month of ‘November’ was observed as the month of registration for dealers.
