Implementation of E-Payment System of Department of Finance

Department of Finance (FD), Government of Maharashtra, has decided to receive payments electronically as E-Receipts. For this purpose, FD had decided to develop and implement an (E-Payment System) in the form of Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS) in order to enable its customers to fill E-Challans on its website and make online or offline payment using the GRAS..

e-payment is a mode of payment in addition to the conventional methods of payment offered by the banks under specific security norms of Reserve Bank of India. This scheme facilitates anytime, anywhere payment and an instant on-line payment receipt is generated once the transaction is complete. It provides the convenience of making online payment of any of Maharashtra State Government Tax through Bank’s Internet banking service.

The system requirements, methodology and suggested process flow was developed, without having any implication of the existing procedure of the executive and accounting agencies of the Departments. While most of the banks have intimated their acceptance of providing this option, and are developing the solutions at their IT Departments, 5 Banks have so far come up with the necessary software.

E-Payment facilitates payment of direct taxes online by taxpayers. To avail of this facility the taxpayer is required to have a net-banking account with any of the banks listed below, which the only banks are offering this facility at present.

Names of the Banks are:

1. Union Bank of India.
2. Indian Overseas Bank
3. Bank of India
4. Bank of Baroda
5. IDBI

Payment Timing:

• This is a 24-hour facility and such; customer can make the payment any time of the day.
• All payments effected up to 20.00PM will be accounted for the day itself and all payments effected after 20.00PM will be accounted as next working day’s receipt.

Advantages:

• Ease of operation and convenience
• Facility is available on 24x7 basis
• One can pay on behalf of the firm, company and others
• On-line payment of taxes (No more queues and waiting)
• On-line Filling of single challan form
• Minimum fields of the challan need to be filled. Most of the fields are populated automatically.
• Selection of appropriate tax-type from drop-down menu
• Instant online receipts for payment made
• Instant Online receipt with banks transaction number becomes available
• The acknowledgement of the challan gets delivered at the customer’s address

The existing manual tax accounting system requires the taxpayer to file three copies of challan. But, E-Challan would require a single challan for payment of any State Government tax. It would cover all the essential information required from the assessee in relation to his tax payments.

Solution is available to:

• Customer of any one of the above Banking branches of the Bank.
• Customers having Banks’ internet banking ID.

The E-Payment System, once implemented, will enable the licensee/ subscribers/Merchants/ other customers to fill an E-Challan online for each type of payment and make electronic payment either online using the Internet Banking System, from a Bank using the GRAS. The E-Payment System will handle automatic reconciliation of the receipt transactions to be received electronically from banks on daily basis and provide the necessary revenue receipt related information online to the users of various sections of FD. The E-Payment System will provide interface with Bank’s payment gateway for online payment by its customers and with the Treasuries and Pay and Accounts Offices of Government of Maharashtra, which is also being implemented in FD.

Procedure for e-challan payment:

1. To pay taxes online on GRAS, the taxpayer will select the relevant challan form ID i.e. Return cum Challan no 221, III-B, 4 etc. as applicable on GRAS.
2. Then the taxpayer will be allowed to fill up other challan details like accounting head under which payment is made, name and address of the Payee and also select the bank through which payment is to be made, etc.
3. Thereafter the challan should be submitted electronically.
4. On submission of data entered a confirmation screen will be displayed. If the taxpayer confirms the data entered in the challan, a unique identification no i.e. Government Reference Number (GRN) will be created and then it will be directed to the net-banking site of the bank.
5. The taxpayer will login to the net-banking site with the user id/ password provided by the bank for net-banking purpose and enters payment details at the bank site.
6. Authorize the payment.
7. On successful payment, a challan will be displayed containing GRN, Bank CIN, payment details and bank-branch name through which e-payment has been made.
8. Online Challan with transaction number of the bank becomes available immediately.
9. You can verify the e-Challans with your GRN number anytime, anywhere at https://gras.mahakosh.gov.in
10. You can access and verify all your past payments online with registration.