Commercial Taxes Department Uttar Pradesh has won the e-Governance Award for the outstanding integrated e-governance project for VarnijYakar Automation System (VYAS)
The Government of Uttar Pradesh has won the Technology Sabha e-Governance Award for VarnijYakar Automation System (VYAS) under the ‘outstanding integrated e-governance project’ category.
The VarnijYakar Automation System (VYAS) enables an effective and efficient system of collection of taxes for the state and hassle free process for commercial tax payers.
The Department of Commercial Taxes, Uttar Pradesh won the award in the ‘outstanding integrated e-governance project’ category and the commercial taxes body received a trophy and citation.
“It is a great feeling for all of us at the department that the e-governance initiatives of ours are getting recognised by one of India’s most respected media houses. Our ultimate goal is to deliver services smoothly, help the government in increasing revenue and ensure commercial tax payers, an ease of doing transaction,” said Mukesh Meshram, Commissioner, Commercial Taxes Department, Uttar Pradesh.
The awards was conferred by the Editor of Express Computer magazine, published by Indian Express Group to the Commercial Taxes Department, Uttar Pradesh during a ceremony in 21st edition of Technology Sabha in Visakhapatnam on February 18.
Through VYAS, a commercial tax payer can register themselves with government and pay the taxes as per the tax rates for different commodities without going to government offices.
Basically, VYAS is an integrated e-governance solution. Uttar Pradesh has developed this platform with a vision to provide effective and efficient system of collection of taxes based on progressive use of information technology and to ensure an environment which is congenial for prospering of trade and commerce in the state.
In fact, at its launch in 2008, VYAS made Uttar Pradesh, the first state in the country to have automated online assessment of dealers along with issuance of automated orders and notices, increasing the citizen centricity.
Under the UP Trade Tax Act, the dealer, who becomes liable to pay tax, has to take registration with department and has to pay tax to the government according to the rates specified for various commodities. To help dealer, government launch VYAS as a central web solution with location-wise SQL server partitioned database for 1349 sector offices in 95 locations under Commercial Taxes Department.
For implementation, government has constructed ‘Vyapari Suvidha Kendra’ at each of 95 locations to facilitate dealers with all trade related services under one roof.
Initially, the dealer registration was done via VYAS software at Vyapari Suvidha Kendra by receiving the registration application and getting filled the details by commercial tax staff at registration counter.
Later on, an e-Amendment feature was introduced to reduce the dealer traffic at registration window and provide the dealers to fill-in their registration amendment application and submit it online anytime from anywhere.
As per the standard procedure, the dealer application reaches to official’s dashboard in VYAS next day through developed automated backend system.
Since October 2014, e-Amendment has been made mandatory for uploading the required document of address proof, identity proof and security bond etc. These documents can be seen by the registering authority at the time of consideration of dealer application for amendment. This has significantly reduced the time of processing the application.
In order to make the process more easy and dealer friendly, the government has also added a bilingual ‘e-services portal for dealers’ where they can see their complete business profile, can apply amendments and track the application status.
So far the state government has received 8,59,101 applications for dealer registration via VYAS and 8,34,058 have been approved.
In addition to Uttar Pradesh, the awards were conferred to Free WiFi initiative of Ministry of Railway, IBMS project of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, INFRACON project of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation and a lifetime achievement award for e-governance to president Nasscom R Chandrasekhar.
