IBM-CBDT in USD 45 mn services agreement

Mumbai, Jun 7 (UNI) The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and IBM today announced a USD 45 million (Rs 205 crore), 5-yr services agreement to modernize CBDT's IT Infrastructure.

As the systems integrator, IBM will offer integrated infrastructure solutions to CBDT's three data centres in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai and facilities management services for the Income Tax Department (ITD) across 745 offices in 510 cities in India. The solution includes IBM's high performing System P Servers, Storage, security solution and host of other associated technologies and services, a release here said.

The partnership will further help improve CBDT's IT systems portfolio. The objective is to improve efficiencies by creating a standardized ecosystem through a single database available to CBDT officers across India. This project along with other key projects being executed by CBDT, will lead to an increase in its tax base and revenues. This will also make it faster, cheaper and more secure for CBDT to scale up for future demands. The new, flexible solutions will also allow CBDT to quickly accommodate new or amended tax legislation and priorities.

IBM is proud to be associated with this prestigious Mission Mode Project of the Government of India. Government agencies are increasingly reliant on information technology to deliver greater responsiveness and improved quality of service to a wide range of stakeholders,'' said IBM India Pvt Ltd Managing Director Shankar Annaswamy in a statement here.

He said, ''This partnership brings to the customer, IBM's unique capability in the tax domain having executed similar large projects globally and establishes IBM's solution strengths in the Public Sector domain. This project will be a reference for both the government and IBM as a showcase of a public-private partnership model and technology-centric enabler for improving citizen centric services.'' UNI