The Forum comprised of panel discussions, knowledge sessions and workshops with the key themes being e-Governance and Tax Transformation on day 1 and day 2 respectively. The Forum was attended by eminent members and representatives of the Government of India including Mr. Sachin Pilot, Honorable Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
The key points emerged during the Forum were:
e-Governance
- Public – Private partnerships: there is a need to evaluate this concept as a possible solution offering medium to government initiatives.
- Are e-Government projects placing the citizen at the focal point? Is there a mechanism in place for citizens to assess, rate and provide feedback?
- Transitioning to e-Governance involves a crucial change management process impacting government employees, citizens, and politicians. Identifying key ‘must do’ steps to ensure successful change management will ensure seamless transformation. What is the appropriate leadership style needed to govern this process?
Tax Transformation
- How will the UIDAI program roll out involving other requirements like PAN etc.?
- There is a progressive need to focus on areas like biometrics with PAN/UIDAI cards and Data warehousing (data mining) for centralized tax records and the option of a 360 degree view of tax payer profiles. The default need arising with this change is for tax department personnel to be trained in spaces like SLAs’, MoUs’, technology etc.
- The mission of the Customs and Excise Department is to ‘facilitate trade’ that will lower risk, expedite processing and improve collections of revenues.
- Will the GST be a fool proof replacement to the multiple tax layers that currently exist? At a fundamental level, is there a need to aggregate tax services? Will the GST be embraced and adopted across communities? What will ensure the successful implementation of GST in India? What are the capabilities that need to be built to support this roll out and the GST system itself?
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