Mission Mode Project for computerization of Commercial Taxes (MMPCT) administrations of States and Union Territories (UTs) is a part of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The administration of the commercial taxes like VAT, CST etc. involves handling of a large number of dealers, who act on behalf of the State Departments to collect tax from consumers and deposit it in the State treasury. This Scheme is to support the States and UTs to computerize their Commercial Tax administering departments so as to enable them to quickly install requisite hardware and application software system in networked environment on a wide-area basis.

The scheme envisions creation of a modern indirect tax administration environment across the States, supported by a suitably enabling Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that is conducive to investment, economic growth and free flow of goods and services within a common market of India. The Scheme aims at building up the capacities across States harmoniously with flexibility to accommodate locally felt needs while subsuming the already ongoing initiatives. It intends to transform key processes leading to improved service delivery and build capacities among all the stakeholders to enable people delivering the services to perform better and while doing so it adopts a service oriented approach to the process re-engineering.

The scheme proposes to provide support to cover the identified gaps in the IT infrastructure so that web-based delivery of basic tax-payer services becomes possible. The activities supported under the scheme would lead to reduced official-dealer interface, reduced response time, faster service deliver, reduced transaction cost, increased transparency and increased accountability.

The main e-services proposed to be made available to the dealers under this project include:

• Online registration under Value Added Tax (VAT) and Central Sales Tax (CST)
• Online filing of VAT, CST and Tax Returns
• Online payment of Commercial Taxes including Profession Tax
• Online application for the issue of CST related Declaration Forms/ Certificates
• Statutory forms to be available online for downloading through secured logins and digital certificates
• Online registration of grievances

The Cabinet has approved the Mission Mode project of Commercial Taxes and Administration in its meeting held on 17.2.2010 with overall cost of Rs. 1133.41 crore. A Project Empowered Committee (PEC) chaired by Revenue Secretary has been set up to consider and approve individual projects submitted by the States and UTs. The Project Empowered Committee has so far examined the project proposal of 31 states and UTs and approved it. The total cost of the approved projects is Rs. 974 crore, of which Central share is Rs. 686 crore. The central funding under the project is around 70% of the approved project cost for all States/UTs expect North-Eastern States where it is 90% and UTs without legislature where it is 100%.

A Project Monitoring Unit (PMU) headed by Joint Secretary (Revenue) has been set up in the Department of Revenue to guide the project activities and to monitor the progress. In addition, Project e-Mission Teams at State level will be providing the required inputs for smooth and finally implementation of project activities. It is expected that e-payment and e-return is all the States and UTs will start by end of third quarter of FY 2011-12.