Rajasthan’s Fraud Detection Framework aims at reducing revenue leakages

The Government of Rajasthan has developed a fraud detection framework that has been useful for identifying the list of probable evaders and criminals

The Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan is a pioneer in unleashing the potential of data based intelligence as one of the drivers to achieve the vision of the state of Rajasthan. Some of the focus areas is increasing the state revenue by detection of potential revenue leakages, identifying the fraudulent activities and improvement in compliance through analytics based methods. This has driven the department to implement analytics as a process to increase efficiency, effectiveness and resource potential of key state government departments using advanced analytical software tools.

This project was spearheaded by Akhil Arora, Principal Secretary, Information Technology Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan, and five key revenue earning departments were selected for this project. Data from these departments has been taken for analytics which is further analysed using functional/ business rules, integrated intelligence and advanced analytical modelling techniques. Some of the key departments selected are the Commercial Taxes Department, Mining Department, Transport Department, Excise Department and the Registration and Stamps Department.

The state wanted to use analytics to track revenue leakages. Accordingly, the state developed evasion scenarios. The cases for revenue evasion/ revenue leakages were identified using business rules of respective departments. Data from multiple departments was integrated in order to identify advanced cross functional business cases. Initially, cases were developed as ‘Proof of Concept’ taking a portion of actual data. These cases were further validated from concerned department’s nodal officer. Upon validation, cases were developed on real time transactional data and potential revenue leakage was identified. A set of visual statistical presentations were made for the end users and stakeholders of departments.

Due to analytics tools being used, the state could reduce the revenue leakages and increase the tax base. The state could now identify scenarios such as probable tax evasion by having multiple registrations on the same PAN or tax evasion by showing sales at a lower tax rate. The state could even do a trend analysis on liquor sale and revenue or do an analysis of vehicle registration data and corresponding revenues. The state has also integrated data from five departments on the basis of a primary key such as PAN or TIN number.

Today, thanks to the fraud detection framework, the state is able to identify potential defaulters based on business rules and realise uncovered revenues. It has also helped in establishing the mechanism to track the status of required/ pending actions on the respective departments, along with revenue recovery.