KERALA COMMERCIAL TAXES DEPT TO ADOPT M-GOVERNANCE
Thiruvananthapuram
The Hindu Business Line
The State Finance Minister, Dr Thomas Isaac, has said that the Commercial Taxes Department would launch an M-Governance initiative for grievances redressal.
Speaking at a workshop on Goods and Services Tax (GST) that also included pre-Budget confabulations with trade and industry here on Tuesday, the Finance Minister said the initiative would be launched on January 11.
This would basically be an interactive voice response system (IVRS) in which an aggrieved trader or assessee can dial a toll-free number and register a complaint on his cell phone from anywhere/anytime in the State.
The complaint can be made in English, Malayalam, Tamil or Hindi. On giving the caller's address and other coordinates, the system would recite back the recorded complaint in the caller's own voice.
Once this is through, a docket number would be messaged to the complainant, which would need to be messaged back to the toll-free number.
A 24/7 monitoring cell at a department call centre would make a transcript of the complaint, and forward it to the concerned Deputy Commissioner for action.
The complaint and the action taken report would be made available online to officials in the department and even the Finance Minister himself.
The details would be uploaded to the Web site of the department where it can be tracked by the public for reference and guidance.
MobME, a player in mobile media and the entertainment platforms based in Technopark here, is implementing the M-Governance initiative on behalf of IT-Kerala.
According to Lishoy Bhaskar, Director (Operations), MobME, a 24/7 monitoring team will transcript the complaints and assign them to the authorities.
The complainant will receive SMS and voice alerts regarding the status of the complaint. Authorities will receive SMS and Voice Alerts whenever a complaint is assigned to them.
The Commissioner, Commercial Taxes; the Taxes Secretary; and the Finance Minister will have access to real-time statistics. Daily, weekly and monthly reports will be made available to these authorities.
A fully transparent system, it is designed to measure efficiency and increase performance levels, Bhaskar said.
The 10-digit toll-free number is being assigned in consultations with the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and is likely to be prefixed as ‘24365.'
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister has reiterated that the Commercial Taxes Department would continue with the inspection of the traders' premises for suspected misappropriation of accounts in the context of slippage in tax revenue realisation. Dr Isaac said that ‘local purchases' in the books of accounts had tended to head abnormally north but have not been matched by ‘sales.'
KEYCHAIN AVATAR FOR THE SMARTCARD
New
The Pioneer
For the convenience of commuters who use Metro's smartcard everyday, Delhi Metro has launched a new generation of smartcards in the form of keychains on Tuesday. The sleek, new 'smart keychains' can be used in the same way as normal smartcards to enter and exit Metro stations, that is by swiping at the designated space on the automatic fare collection gates.
The decision to introduce smart key chains was taken as many Metro commuters use cars, two-wheelers or bicycles and normally use key chains which they can now replace with the new devices. While the Metro smartcards are of the size of credit cards so that they can be kept in wallets, the smart keychains are much smaller, 55 mm in length, 27 mm breadth and 3 mm thick, so they can be carried in pockets. The corners are rounded and the sides tapered. They are made with high-quality plastic and are coated with acrylic resin to make them unbreakable.
GOVT PLANS MOBILE PHONE ROUTE TO REACH BASIC FINANCIAL SERVICES
Subrahmanyan Viswanath, Bangalore
Deccan Herald
In a major initiative, as part of its e-governance programme, the Centre, plans to extend its e-inclusion envelope to reach basic financial services using mobile phones.
According to Department of Information Technology (DIT) sources with country’s rural population and disadvantageous sections taking to mobile in a big way, a “delivery mechanism that enables provision of basic financial services on individual’s mobile,” be seriously explored.
It was observed that though a large section of rural population has access to mobile telephony, they do not have a similar facility to financial services through banks. With rural mobile subscriber base expected to leapfrog in the near future, reaching out to “unbanked” population of the country through mobiles could be the way forward for financial inclusion. It is planned to leverage the existing infrastructure established and operationalised by telecom service providers across the country for airtime payments for this major national mission purpose.
Besides evolving a framework for delivering financial services over mobiles, the Centre, sources said, is addressing issues such as types of transactions that could be allowed; quantum of financial limits; types of guarantee to be offered by airtime vendors; eligibility of agencies involved; role, responsibility and accountability of telecom service providers; regulatory issues to ensure accountability, auditability and traceability of money transfers; safety of deposits among others.
Addressing these gamut of issues, an Inter Ministerial Group, under Chairmanship of DIT Secretary, has agreed that initial basic goals of financial delivery would include ability to deposit money in an account, transfer from one subscriber to another and cash-in and cash-out deposits at convenient locations.
The IMG also debated on Know Your Customer norms, authentication mechanisms, customer protection, money laundering, while noting that mobile operators can provide financial services delivery mechanism along with an intermediary to remote and rural areas. Sources said the IMG also noted that Unique ID infrastructure, once in place, would be key element in basic financial service delivery model.
The IMG is scheduled to meet on December 24, 2009, to delineate the role of each key player as also intermediaries to roll out the programme on priority basis.
The IMG is expected to come up with broad framework in the next two months. The idea is to make use of the technology opportunity, model to arrive at and get clarity to enable people without bank account do necessary financial transaction. IMG comprises of representatives from Department of Financial Services, Posts, Rural Development, Planning Commission, Unique Identification Authority of India, TRAI, RBI, DoT and Home Ministry.
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