Goods And Services Tax Network

March 2019
The materials/contents published in this year book are exclusively owned by and/or licensed
to GSTN, and is protected by copyright, trademark and other intellectual property and other
applicable laws of India. The contents of this yearbook may be used, subject to copyright
and proprietary information exclusively retained with GSTN and in terms of this policy. The
contents of this yearbook shall not be distributed, modified, transmitted, used, reused, made
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above, the materials and contents have to be used accurately and strictly for the permitted
purpose and not in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. Wherever such materials
and contents are being used, the source must be prominently acknowledged. The above
permission to use any material published in this yearbook shall not extend to any material
featured in this yearbook which is explicitly identified as being the copyrighted property of a
third party. Authorization to reproduce such copyrighted material must be obtained from the
copyright holders concerned. Any disputes arising in relation to the above shall be governed
by and construed in accordance with the Indian Laws and shall be subject to exclusive
jurisdiction of Court at New Delhi.

© 2018-19
GST Portal Go Live
1st July 2017 Goods And Services Tax Network
Message from

Hon’ble Minister
of Finance
Message from

Hon’ble Minister
of State, Finance
Message from

Revenue
Secretary
Preface
With GST, India took a quantum leap towards the goal of establishing ‘One Nation, One Market’ by
dismantling multiple taxes and unifying them into a single tax. From the very beginning, technology
was envisaged to play a pivotal role in bringing about this tectonic shift in the Indirect Tax System in
India. GSTN has undeniably been the bedrock of this new indirect tax system. With the entire weight
of putting IT infrastructure for implementation of this historic tax reform resting on our shoulders, the
last two years have been immensely challenging, yet highly fulfilling.

Rolling out a new technology based tax regime was never going to be a cakewalk especially in a
country as large and diverse as India.

Taxpayers in India are no uniform entity; given the variations in

their business scale and level of IT maturity, our objective was
to design and create a technological infrastructure to cater to
the last common denominator. Taxpayer convenience, improving
ease of compliance and minimizing human interface were the
most defining objectives that guided us in our journey.

Designed as a self-service operation, which is simple and adaptable for mobile systems, the GST
interface is playing a major role in empowering businesses and entrepreneurs by easing tax-paying
procedures and improving ease of doing business. Our user interface has kept improving constantly
and rather quickly. As we near the second anniversary of GST rollout, we can look back at our
experience with great degree of pride and satisfaction. In less than two years, GST has become a
way of life for businesses in India. The Yearbook effectively captures the story of our challenges as
well as the innovation of thought and design we employed to overcome them.

I am extremely thankful to our highly professional team that worked against time and criticism,
stayed highly resilient and open to feedback and consistently improved the tax filing experience at
the GST Portal. GSTN is constantly endeavouring to make the tax filing process as easy and simple
as possible for the last common denominator.

Prakash Kumar
CEO, GSTN

11
12
CONTENTS
Section I: GSTN Organizational Features

15 An Overview

17 Organisational Structure

Section II: Technological Overview

19 Technology Architecture of GST System Project and

Approach

30 GST System Testing – Ensuring Quality

36 MIS Reports and Data Sharing with States and Centre

Section III: Operations

39 GST Portal Operations

43 GST Helpdesk: Engaging with the taxpayers

46 Listening to the Consumer

48 GSP Eco-System: Partners in GST Transformation

53 Status of Implementation of E-Way Bill

Section IV: Ensuring Transparency & Accountability

57 Assurance through Right to Information

57 Financial Audit

58 Auditing of GST System by CAG – Continual Improvement

Section V: Outreach & Capability Building

61 GSTN Outreach Initiatives

Section VI: Our Partners

71 Infosys

74 Wipro

76 Tech Mahindra

79 NIC

85
Statistics
SECTION I:
GSTN
Organizational
Features

14
An Overview

O
n July 1, 2017, India unleashed its most 1. The Government of India holds 24.5% equity
revolutionary taxation reform till date in in GSTN and all States of the Indian Union,
the form of the Goods & Services Tax including NCT of Delhi and Puducherry, and
(GST) that has infused a fresh vigour into the the Empowered Committee of State Finance
economy by unifying the country into one single Ministers (EC), together hold another 24.5%
market. Digital technology has been the bedrock equity. The balance 51% equity is held by the
of this historic reform. The idea of GST is non-Government financial institutions. The
incomplete without its IT backbone – the Goods Authorised Share Capital of the company is
& Services Tax Network. Rs. 10,00,00,000 (Rupees Ten Crore only).

By creating and managing a common GST 2. The strategic control of the Government over
Portal that acts as a one-stop shop for all GSTN is ensured through measures such
stakeholders, GSTN has essentially changed as composition of the Board, mechanisms
the way India pays its indirect taxes. The strong of Special Resolution and Shareholders’
IT Infrastructure and Service backbone enables Agreement, induction of Government
capture, processing and exchange of information officers on deputation and agreements
amongst the stakeholders including taxpayers, between GSTN and Governments.
States and the Central Government, Accounting
Offices, Banks and RBI, all at a single portal. The 3. The Board of Directors of GSTN comprises
Common GST Portal today is the only interface of 14 Directors with 3 Directors from the
between the taxpayer and the tax authority. Centre, 3 from the States, a Chairman
appointed through a joint approval
Before we dwell into the technological aspects mechanism of Centre and States, 3
that determined the GSTN’s journey, let’s take a Directors from private equity stakeholders,
look at the foundation of this organization as well 3 independent Directors who are persons of
as its founding principles and objectives. eminence and a CEO selected through an
open selection process.

Charter 4. GSTN was funded through a one-time, non-

recurring, Grant-in aid from the Central
The Government of India approved the setting up Government for the initial setting up and
of the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) as functioning of the company for a three year
a non-government, not-for-profit, private limited period after incorporation. Thereafter, GSTN
company on 12th April 2012 for providing shared is funded through its own Revenue stream
IT infrastructure and services for implementation in the form of User Charges being paid by
of the Goods & Services Tax (GST) regime in the tax authorities using it, shared between
country. It was incorporated on March 28, 2013 the Centre and States and amongst States
under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 based on number of taxpayers in the states,
(Section 8 under the Companies Act, 2013) with as per the Revenue Model approved by the
the following characteristics: EC in its meeting held on 31st August 2016.

15
Vision of GSTN
To become a trusted National Information Utility (NIU) which provides reliable, efficient and robust IT
Backbone for the smooth functioning of the GST regime in India as “One Nation, One Tax” enabling
economic agents to leverage the entire nation as “One Market” with minimal Indirect Tax compliance
cost.

Mission
{{ Provide common and shared IT infrastructure and services to the Central and State
Governments, Tax Payers and other stakeholders for implementation of the Goods &
Services Tax (GST).
{{ Provide common Registration, Return and Payment services to the Tax payers.
{{ Partner with other agencies for creating an efficient and user-friendly GST Eco-system.
{{ Encourage and collaborate with GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs) to roll out GST Applications
for providing simplified services to the stakeholders.
{{ Carry out research, study best practises and provide Training and Consultancy to the Tax
authorities and other stakeholders.
{{ Provide efficient Backend Services to the Tax Departments of the Central and State
Governments on request.
{{ Develop Tax Payer Profiling Utility (TPU) for Central and State Tax Administration.
{{ Assist Tax authorities in improving Tax compliance and transparency of Tax Administration
system.
{{ Deliver any other services of relevance to the Central and State Governments and other
stakeholders on request.

Founding Principles/Values
{{ Inclusiveness
{{ Efficiency
{{ Transparency
{{ Commitment
{{ Collaboration
{{ Excellence
{{ Innovation
{{ Accountability

Conversion of GSTN to a fully-owned Government Company

The GST Council in its 27th meeting held on 4th May 2018 decided that GSTN will be converted
into a 100% Government-owned entity by transferring 51% equity held by the Non-Government
institutions to the Centre and states equally. The Union Cabinet in its meeting held on 26th September
2018 approved the recommendation to convert GSTN into a fully-owned Government company.
Consequently, the Board of GSTN will comprise of 4 Directors each from the Centre and States,
3 other independent Directors, Chairman and CEO. The formalities for conversion of GSTN into a
Government company are currently in progress and are expected to be completed by 31st May 2019.

16
 Figure: 1 Organisational Structure

17
SECTION I:
Technological
Overview

18
Technology
Architecture of
GST System
Project and
Approach
IT Strategy

A
s GST was to subsume large number of central and state indirect taxes, a need arose to
provide one interface to taxpayers for all compliances in place of 36 different portals which
the taxpayers had to report to during pre-GST era. On the other hand the tax officers required
separate applications to work on return/registration for etc. submitted by taxpayers. Keeping these
in view, government decided to create a Special Purpose Vehicle which will develop and maintain
common portal for all taxpayers but will provide interface to tax departments for smooth transfer of
data, both ways. GSTN was mandated to

{{ Build GST IT System to provide shared IT infrastructure and services to Central and 36
State/UT Governments, taxpayers and other stakeholders,

{{ To develop Common Registration, Return Filing, Payment and other back-office GST
business processes

{{ Integration of Common GST Portal with existing tax administration systems of Centre and
States

{{ Build efficient and convenient interfaces for taxpayers

{{ Put in place system for Business intelligence and Data Analytics

19
To cater to this requirement following IT Strategy was adopted:

Figure 2: IT Strategy

This required a system which was not tightly backend system by GSTN. For 27 States, GSTN
coupled and data exchange happened using APIs. has developed a common software based on
The Central and State tax authorities were told to processes defined and agreed by the Model-2
put in place mechanism for receiving data from States, however, the databases for the States
GST system and share processed output so that are separately maintained. The nine states which
taxpayer had to come to only one portal. Twelve have developed backend systems on their own
states requested GSTN to develop the backend were called Model-1 and remaining 27 states as
applications as they did not have the required IT Model-2 states. The list of Model-1 and Model-2
teams. This number kept on increasing and by State is given below.
the time GST System was rolled out, 27 States/
Union Territories had opted for development of

Model-2 States
1 Arunachal Pradesh 12 Uttar Pradesh
2 Assam 13 Uttarakhand
3 Bihar 14 Madhya Pradesh
4 Delhi 15 Chhattisgarh
5 Himachal Pradesh 16 Jharkhand
6 Manipur 17 Rajasthan
7 Mizoram 18 Punjab
8 Nagaland 19 West Bengal
9 Odisha 20 Gujarat
10 Puducherry 21 Telangana
11 Tripura 22 J&K

20
 Model-2: UTs without Legislature
1 Chandigarh 4 Andaman and Nicobar Islands
2 Daman & Diu 5 Lakshadweep
3 Dadra & Nagar Haveli

Model-1 States
1 Andhra Pradesh 6 Maharashtra
2 Goa 7 Meghalaya
3 Haryana 8 Sikkim
4 Karnataka 9 Tamil Nadu
5 Kerala

Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC)

Figure 3: Model-1 and Model-2 States Operation

After rollout of GST, GSTN was asked to put system which is integrated with GST system
in place a system in place to enable taxpayers using APIs for getting registration data and for
and transporters generate E-Way Bills in self- sharing back e-way bill data. This system was
service mode for smooth movement of goods made operational on 1st April 2018.
across India. This was taken up as a separate

Other few important requirements for the design team are as given below:

a) Total elimination of paper out of compliance under GST starting from registration to filing of
return. Even the acknowledgement was not allowed to be submitted on paper as is being done
under income tax return.

b) Collection of invoice level data for business to business (B2B) transactions as well for large
(above Rs 2.5 lakhs invoice value) business to consumer (B2C) transactions. During pre-GST
regime, this was being done by only four States under VAT.

21
c) Compulsory authentication of all forms filed on GST portal either by Digital Signature Certificate
or through Electronic Verification Code (EVC) based on OTP sent to registered mobile number
of the taxpayer.

Challenges of creating a GST 5. Integration with more than 100 systems

including Model1 States, CBIC, 25 Banks
infrastructure for an economy of
for payment, 36 State Treasuries, RBI,
a billion plus Principal CCA, ICEGATE, Aadhaar, CBDT
etc. for data transfer, online work flow like
GST System is one of the world’s most complex payment, approval of registration, audit,
and largest Indirect Tax Systems and creating assessment etc.
it from scratch was a mammoth task for the
technology team behind it. The GST team faced 6. Large amount of data sharing (invoice data,
some very unique and difficult challenges while payment details, registration data) on near
architecting and designing this application. real time basis with various tax authorities
Understanding these challenges will help in and banks.
appreciating the architecture and design choices
of GST System. The challenges before the team
7. Integration with external entities like GSPs
that sum up the enormity of the task included:
(GST Suvidha Provider) for providing return
filing and other GST compliance services
1. Creating a new Indirect Tax System from similar to Google and Facebook.
scratch for the 6th largest economy of the
world.
8. Keeping system open for innovation but at
the same time robust and secure to protect
2. Law, Rules & Forms were a work in progress Taxpayer data. Security and Safety of
and this required constant improvisation at GST System data was the major concern
our end. Even some of the most important not only for the taxpayers but also for the
parameters for designing the system like government.
granularity of invoice data to be collected
HSN wise or rate wise were a work in
9. Being an Indirect Tax System of the 6th
progress. These parameters have a huge
largest economy, it was expected to be
impact on sizing and performance of system.
available 99.99% on average and 100%
on peak days with great user experience
3. Developing application and process for with zero data loss. The expected figure for
smooth transition of old tax payers (36 last days’ filing was 30 lakh initially (50% of
States/UTs and CBIC) from VAT/Service total Taxpayer base) considering a 60 lakh
Tax regime to new GST system through an Tax payer base, which has grown rapidly
online process without need for any physical and reached 1.2 Crore within 20 months of
document. launch of GST System.

4. Developing GST System to collect granular 10. GST System had to also develop applications
level business data (Invoice level) and for tax officers of 27 states (Model-2)
provide a feature of auto population and for performing their statutory functions
self-service based online ITC reconciliation like taxpayer Registration Management,
between seller and buyer. No Tax System in Assessment, Appeal, Refund, Dashboards,
the world had tried this. MIS etc. The fact that every state has its
own processes and hierarchy of roles for
performing these activities made it an even
more daunting task.

22
Additionally, the GSTN team also faced the 3. The GST System had a unique requirement
challenges of adherence to a strict timeline while of processing and storing large amounts of
simultaneously adapting to regular changes invoice data like any large internet based
being made in Law/Rule/Form. Taxpayer as well application while also storing the ledger,
as Tax officer education was another critical registration and payment data with the
challenge. same consistency as banks. To address
this GST System decided to leverage two
best data stores to handle these specific
How We Saw Through the requirements -- HBASE (Big Data Store)
for keeping large amounts of invoice data
Challenges
and MySQL (RDBMS) for keeping payment/
ledger/registration data.
We sought to address the challenges before us
by adopting the below mentioned architectural
4. Similar to the functioning of any e-commerce
and design approaches:
site, it was expected that the taxpayer would
submit all of his/her business transaction
1. Adoption of open source technologies/
details to the GST system, which in turn
product and reference Architecture, which
will calculate the liability and ITC accrued.
are used by large-scale internet companies
Based on that, the Taxpayer will pay the
like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google etc. This
liability through accrued ITC and cash
has helped GST System in scaling and
online. The massive challenge before
processing large amount of data without
the system was to process the complete
any vendor lock-in and at a fractional cost
information, update ledger of the taxpayer,
of proprietary system. GST System has only
calculate his/her liability and accrued ITC,
used proprietary system, where there was
provide an avenue to make online payment
no alternative open source product with
and ensure the return filing happens in the
Enterprise support.
shortest possible time. Moreover, `it was
expected that 50% of the existing taxpayers
2. As the Law, Rules and Forms were still
will file returns on the last day, resulting in
being finalized, it was certain that there
major traffic surge on the portal. To handle
were bound to be frequent changes in
this, the GST System divided operations in
front end /back end and processing. So,
many independent synchronous (immediate
during the initial days, the GST Technical
processing and acknowledgement like
team focused on creating common
payment) and asynchronous (immediate
frameworks like Return Signing framework,
acknowledgement for receiving the
Authentication and Authorization framework,
request and post processing like in invoice
Encryption/Decryption framework,
submission) steps. For asynchronous steps,
Common Processing Framework, Common
the taxpayers were provided a feedback
Communication Framework, Automated
that their request will be processed in 15-
Build and Deployment Platform. This helped
20 minutes. This greatly helped in providing
us in creating a robust back-end platform/
a good experience to the taxpayer while
foundation, which was later leveraged by
preventing the system from choking.
all modules of GST System like return/
registration etc. This immensely helped
the GST system in successfully rolling out
functionalities (Registration and Return
Filing) after a few days of finalization of
forms.

23
 Figure 4: Return Uploading Flow

5. As any Indirect Tax System, the GST System This provided a much- needed flexibility
has to cater to many types of taxpayers, in development as any functionality can
ever-changing rules, business validation be developed independently and inter
processes as well as various types of return dependencies like return module needing
forms. It therefore needed a very flexible and information from registration and payment/
agile system. To address these multifarious ledger module can be easily met.
requirements, the GST System has followed
an API based development. In an API centric 6. GST system has to share a large amount
architecture, each service declares its input of data with various agencies and
and output and other services simply call perform integration for online validation
them to get details, without knowing the and completing workflows as mentioned
implementation details of this service. For above. To address this requirement of data
example, if one wants to “Search a Tax sharing and reconciliation, the GST System
Payer”, the API will expect GSTIN number designed from scratch a new API based data
as the input and will provide details of the sharing framework which has features of on
Taxpayer. This service works on an internal demand pulling and robust reconciliation
logic that searches this GSTIN first in cache like information of total records with hash of
and then in database to fetch the taxpayer records for integrity of data etc. with every
detail. However, the calling services need file. This framework is now being used by
not know it and if required its logic can be many government systems requiring large
changed without affecting other services amount of data transfer. For online validation
as long as input/output are the same. This and workflow-based integration also, GST
has helped the GST system to evolve every System has used API framework with great
functionality independently and gradually. success. Currently more than 130 entities

24
 are integrated with GST System and it is less than 10 invoices; from manufacturing to
handling on an average more than 5 million service based companies; from companies
API hits per day. having fully automated accounting systems
to MSMEs having completely manual
This design has helped GSTN in creating operations – addressing these varied
a platform on which services can be added requirements was a difficult task for the
later, as and when need arises. This has GST System. To meet this challenge, the
also helped GSTN integrate large number GST system opened all the functionalities
of external agencies including 70 plus GST of return and ledger to various software
Suvidha Providers (GSPs). The platform companies through APIs. These companies
can add new services from new agency with were selected through a rigorous scrutiny
ease. of their capability and after security audit of
their applications by empaneled agencies of
7. One of the major objectives of the GST CERT-In. These companies have been given
System was taxpayer convenience. To fulfil a name GSP (GST Suvidha Providers). They
this, GST System came up with an online in turn provide services to other Application
portal (which is accessible from both desktop Service Providers (ASPs) like accounting
and mobile) having all GST services related software as well as taxpayers. Many GSPs
to GST compliance and various offline tools are also ASPs. This enabled many GSP/
for preparing returns offline. However, since ASPs to provide services to various types
the taxpayer base comprised of a wide variety of taxpayers and helped them achieve
of taxpayers, from large corporates having compliance.
10 Lakhs invoices/month to MSMEs having

Figure 5: GST Portal Accessibility Map

25
 Figure 6: Back Office Accessibility Map

8. As we move from year to year, the GST in case of any disaster, a new concept of
taxpayer count will keep on increasing (it has DC/NDC and DR/NDR across two distinct
gone up from 64 lakhs in July 2017 to 1 crore geographies has been implemented. The
and 19 lakhs in Feb 2019). To handle this introduction of Near DC (NDC) & Near DR
increase in load without making any change (NDR) will help in recovering data in case
in application, all software components of sudden disaster as replication of data
(GST Application and all software product) across two distinct geographies takes time.
used in GST System have been designed
to be horizontally scalable i.e. capacity of 9. To ensure security and safety of GST
the GST system can be increased by simply Portal and taxpayer data, best of the breed
adding more hardware without making software and hardware components were
any change in Application Software and deployed in all data centers. Almost all
affecting user experience. Latest completely the integration with external systems has
automated devops techniques have been been through a secure MPLS connectivity.
used to instantly deploy more resources at On top of it, https protocol has been used
the time of peak load and reduce resources to securely transport data from the GST
without any downtime. This has helped GST System to any other integrating system or to
System to utilize its resources efficiently taxpayer. To ensure complete anonymity of
and provide a good user experience. Tax payer data, APIs have been designed to
take encrypted data from ASP/GSP system,
To achieve high availability and zero data which can be decrypted only by GST System.
loss requirement, the GST System has This ensures that in case of any leak of data
deployed every component be it web during transmission, data cannot be used by
servers, application servers, storage layer any other system. A unique authentication
and application in high availability mode i.e. and authorization framework for API has
every component is deployed in pairs, so that also been designed, which is now emulated
in case of failure of one, the other can take by various GSPs and government systems.
up without affecting the system. To ensure A unique framework has also been used to
“Zero Data Loss” and continuity of business protect stored data from tampering.

26
10. The GST System also had to develop GST System Project – Software
applications for Tax officers to help them
Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
perform their statutory functions like
registration approval, appeal, refund
We embarked on the journey to design and
processing, assessment etc. As every
develop the Core GST System using Waterfall
Model-2 State had its own processes
methodology and on the premise of building
and hierarchy of officers in VAT regime,
the system on the foundation of GST Law/Act,
the GST System had to first conduct a
Rules and Forms prevailing at that point of time.
process re-engineering exercise involving
Considering the compliance aspect of the GST
all stakeholders to agree on a single
system, finalization of the Rules, Forms and
unified process for all activities. After
Business Processes was mandatory to baseline
that, an Application for Tax Officers called
the requirements and overall success of the
Back-Office (BO) was designed and all
project.
functionalities were broken down into
smaller services with APIs made for all such
services. Same APIs are used by Model-1 RFP mandated the system development
States and CBIC to develop their individual methodology to be waterfall as depicted below.
applications. System has been designed This pre-supposed availability of Law/Act, Rules
completely on self-service model and lot of and Forms.
functionalities have been provided to the
Administrator for handling routine activities
such as adding/deleting user, providing role,
changing jurisdiction etc.

Figure 7: SDLC Flow Diagram

27
The requirement elicitation phase of the software the basic business processes were not defined
lifecycle is designed for capturing firm and and hence things did not unfold the way the
unambiguously articulated business requirement project was conceptualized and envisaged at
to pave the path for the next step in the life the RFP stage. From functional requirement
cycle of translating the business requirement perspective, RFP only covered business
into software requirement (SRS, Software processes at a broader level. The Forms were
Requirement Specification). Baselined SRS is indicative in nature and had not been approved by
critical to move to the next stage of Architecture relevant approving authorities (e.g. GST Council
and Design, followed by Development of the and Central/State Governments). In addition, the
system and various Testing activities including Forms covered only some of the aspects of the
the User Acceptance Testing. core modules, namely, Registration, Payment
and Returns. To mitigate the risk, we had to
Software Development follow a “Semi Agile” methodology and then a
“Full Agile” methodology. The illustration below
Methodology Followed provides an in insight what transpired against
At contract finalization stage in November 2015, what was envisaged.
GST Act, Rules, Forms were not available. Even

Figure 8: Product Development Methodology

In order to meet the delivery date i.e. 1st July, 2017, Scrum framework was used to develop and
test the application basis the revised MGL. The illustration below provides an in insight of Scrum
framework that is being followed to develop and deliver the functionalities.

28
 Figure 9: GST Scrum Framework

Scrum framework provides the working software in a continuous manner at the end of every Sprint.
In order to deploy the working functionalities continuously to production environment, DevOps
framework was configured to achieve the CICD (Continuous integration continuous deployment).
The illustration below provides an insight of DevOps framework which is being used for automated
deployment after automated build and regression test.

Figure 10: Continuous Integration Continuous Development (CICD)

29
GST System Testing – Ensuring Alternate flows are covered and
validated for the functionalities through
Quality
the documented test scenarios and test
cases.
GST IT System consists of critical Software and
Infrastructure components that require multiple
layers of testing before the application services 3. System Integration Testing:
are made available online to the taxpayers and Functional testers perform Integration testing
to all its stakeholders. The software applications after System testing. End to end scenarios
testing is part of the robust Quality Assurance are executed in the Integration Testing phase
Program which includes unit, release, system, which covers the entire integrated system along
integration, security, performance, stress and with 3rd Party interfaces. System Integration
user acceptance testing of the developed testing (SIT) is a black box testing technique
application for its Business functionalities. These that evaluates the system’s compliance against
eight types of software application testing are specified requirements. The End-to-End business
defined in the Test Strategy document along with scenarios (E2E) are identified to simulate the end-
the Managed Service Provider (MSP), Infosys in to-end business process involving integration
this case. This includes articulating the overall and test cases are written. The objective of
planning, design and execution of the various the Integration testing is to ensure the below
testing and final acceptance of system. This mentioned goals are met:
process entails designing of detailed test cases
for each phase of testing of the application and {{ uccessful Integration of GST with the
S
carefully executing the same with well-articulated 3rd Party Interfaces
success criteria. {{ nd to end Business Process Scenarios
E
(E2E) involving 3rd Party Interface
The following are the critical testing phases during Integrations and Validations are working
the lifecycle of development of GST Application: as expected as per signed off SRS
requirement documents.
1. Unit Testing Phase:
Unit testing is carried out by the development 4. Security Testing:
team in which the individual components of Vulnerability and Penetration Testing: The
the applications are tested for functioning. For security testing is performed in two steps, first
example: the GST Registration process consists by the MSP and then by the security team of
of two parts steps: Part A and Part B. Further, Part GSTN to identify vulnerable code components
B consists of taxpayer applying for registration that may lead to threat exposure of GST System.
and being allocated to Tax Officer and the tax Strict guidelines have been formulated in line
officer approving the Registration Application. with latest best practices in secure coding and
This registration application consists of three other human procedures. A penetration test,
units and these were tested independently first colloquially known as a pen-test (an authorized
by the developer to ensure that these units work simulated cyberattack on a computer system) is
as expected. performed to evaluate the security of the system.
The test is performed to identify both weaknesses
2. Release/ System Testing (also referred to as vulnerabilities), including the
Phase: potential for unauthorized parties to gain access
to the system’s features and data, as well as
The release/System testing is a specialized task
strengths, enabling a full risk assessment to be
and is performed by Application Testers. The units
completed.
mentioned above are released to the Application
testers in increments for release testing. System
testing is the module testing consisting of three 5. Performance / Stress Testing:
units. In Release testing, GSTN supported by The Performance testing objective is conducted
their MSP ensure the following depth of the to test the application and the associated
testing coverage: infrastructure behaviour for a concurrent load of
1 lakhs users using the system per second. The
{{ All the Main Flows business scenarios, GST 3B Return has been tested and application
rules, field level validation and various

30
parameters tuned for a peak load of 1 lakh users Board] ISTQB certified for functional testing.
per second. Stress Tests have been conducted All the Application Programming Interfaces
for GST system by running the system for 60,000 [APIs] are tested to ensure that they meet the
users / per second concurrently for one day to required specifications. The GST functionalities
ensure stability and durability. Performance and are deployed to production after GSTN’s UAT
Stress testing ensures robustness of the GST approval only.
System.

6. User Acceptance Testing For Return application, Beta

[UAT]: Testing was also conducted by
UAT is the last phase of the software testing engaging actual taxpayers, after
process and is performed by GSTN. The GSTN above-mentioned 8 step testing
services and the technical team review the process. Similar exercise is
test cases as per the System Requirement planned for the New Return before
Specification document. These are executed by it is deployed.
the UAT Testers of GSTN. These UAT testers
are [International Software Testing Qualifications

Security features of GST System:

Safeguarding Taxpayer Data
GST System including the GST portal enables the registration, return filing and payment of all taxes
at one place. Thus, GST system handles the confidential and sensitive information of the taxpayers
including their Personally Identifiable Information (PII), business transaction details etc. The GST
system is accessible to multiple stakeholders over different network channels including Internet and
MPLS. Understandably, any security breach could have a significant impact on the confidence of
stakeholders as well as cause disruption to the tax systems.

The threats to the GST system could be from multifarious sources -- in the form of potential data
tampering attempts for commercial benefit by individuals or by organized groups, Industrial espionage,
insider attacks to steal data or cyber-attacks. Keeping in view these facts, elaborate cyber security
measures have been adopted during designing and implementation of the GST System. Some of the
overarching considerations are discussed below:

31
Key Design Principles:
{{ Platform Based Approach: Designed as a platform powered by a faceless Open API
architecture & Open Standards

{{ No Vendor lock-in and Replace-ability: Vendor neutrality driven by design ensuring plug-
ability and adherence to standards

{{ Security and Privacy: Privacy and data integrity and disseminating data to authenticated
and authorized users

{{ Scalability: Scalability to be driven by application design ensuring scaling out with

hardware addition in a modular fashion

{{ Availability: Load Balanced in an active-active fashion avoiding a single point of failure

{{ Manageability: Ensuring non-intrusive monitoring of components assuming infrastructural

failure is commonplace

{{ Reliability: Ensure Data integrity and prevent unauthorized manipulation of data

{{ Data Driven Decision Making: Capture enough system analytical data to provide
improvement indicators

{{ Reconstruction of truth: Tamper resistance capacity and source of truth (original data of
invoices and final returns) could be used to reconstruct derived data

Key Security Principles

While designing the GST System, there has been significant focus on information security
aspects of the system i.e. Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability and non-repudiation etc. Some
of the overarching considerations in the Information Security Architecture of the system are
given below:

{{ Core GST System is not directly exposed to the internet

{{ Multi-layered security architecture with best of the breed technologies & products

{{ Role Based Access to GST system through Secured tunnel

{{ Any data transfer from GST System to State system / other systems in encrypted format

{{ Real-time collection & monitoring of System logs

{{ Periodic Security testing and audits

32
Security features embedded in different aspects of the GST System

Software Development
{{ The software developed and various software used in GST System are scanned for
security risk/malwares

{{ A centralized repository of approved software is maintained and reviewed periodically

{{ Adoption and Adherence to Secure Coding practices ensuring security throughout SDLC
(Software Development Life Cycle)

{{ Adoption of Industry best practices and CMMI in software development

Physical Security
{{ TIER-III Data Centers with Multi-level security including Building Security, 24x7x365
CCTV monitoring

{{ Access control via combination of Bio-Metric and Badged Access for approved users
subjected to business needs

{{ Anti-Pass enabled on all access points

{{ Deployment of DOTL (Door-Too-Long Buzzers), VESDA, Rodent Detectors, WLD etc.

integrated with centralized monitoring

IT Infrastructure Security
{{ GST System is hosted in a dedicated caged area with strict access controls

{{ Four Data Center environments DC/DR (Main Data Centers) and NDC/NDR (Near Dara
Centers) at separate locations (Delhi and Bangalore) ensuring Zero Data Loss.

{{ Network Segregations via VLANs, Secure and public zones to increase the time taken
by a potential attacker to explore the system and more time at hand to detect and react
against such attacks

{{ Access to IT Infra on need to know, need to do basis via use of PAM/IDAM

{{ Resiliencies built across IT Infra ensuring high availability

{{ Deployment of security tools and technologies like Anti-APT, Firewall, Routers, Anti-virus
& Anti-Malware, IPS (Host and Network based Intrusion Prevention System)

{{ DDOS protection via Clean-pipe (WAN link) from Service provider and additional
deployment of appliance at GST System data centers

33
Application security
{{ The core GST system is not exposed directly to internet

{{ I nteraction with GST system via API’s and secure development in compliance with CMMI
standard

{{ Data transfer from GST System in encrypted format using Industry known standards

{{ Data Encryption (at rest and during transit), use of Digital Signature

{{ Role Based Access Controls and Single-Sign-On (SSO) for all users

{{ egregated environments for Development, Testing and Production with access controls
S
and SOD

{{ Deployment of Web Application Firewalls

Data Security
{{ atabase Sharding separating very large databases into smaller, faster, more easily
D
manageable parts ensuring greater controls against data thefts.

{{ Database Encryption

{{ Database Activity Monitoring

API Security
{{ API’s exposed through secure MPLS for Tax Officials

{{ ll APIs for banks and APIs having public information like “GSTIN Search” are securely
A
exposed over internet

{{ API access restricted to registered entities whom GST System has issued a Client secret

{{ very API call is also authenticated using user-id /password and authorization token
E
mechanism

{{ API Gateway and license key for managing secure information exchange

Security Monitoring
{{ edicated Security Operations Center (SOC) monitoring events from IT systems,
D
Applications, Devices and Databases on 24x7x365 basis

{{ edicated team managing Network Operations Center (NOC) monitoring health

D
parameters (Performance, Utilization and Availability etc.) of IT infrastructure and
Network devices

34
 Security Testing and Audits
{{ GRC Framework, Information/Cyber Security Framework, Program Governance
Framework, Policies and Procedures in alignment with ISO 27001/22301/20001, GOI
Guidelines, IT-ACT

{{ eriodic Source code scanning in alignment with OWASP Top 10 and CWE/SANS Top
P
25 to detect vulnerabilities and weak coding practices at various stages of SDLC

{{ tatic and Dynamic Analysis of 3rd party components and Open source binaries to detect
S
malwares using licensed and customized tools

{{ erification of Data Security controls like Encryption, Anonymization, DB Access Control

V
and DAM functioning using DB utilities and Custom scripts

{{ ull system VA/PT of IT Infra, Apps using licensed tools and customized scripts by MSP,
F
GSTN and External Agency

{{ eriodic Quality and Security audits by MSP, GSTN and External Independent Auditing
P
Agency and Govt Of India Agencies.

Further Bolstering Security: The service provider will also conduct

conformance assessment for process compliance
Key Initiatives
in line with ISO 27001, ISO20000-1, ISO 22301,
Cyber security is a constantly evolving domain IT ACT and other applicable GOI guidelines.
and strengthening it is a persistent process. The service provider will conduct conformance
Considering the changing Cyber Threat assessment for regulatory compliance like IT Act,
landscape as well as the business requirements RBI Guidelines, GST Act, NCIIPC guidelines etc.
from the Govt. of India, GSTN is working on
The service provider will conduct IT Audits
below initiatives to enhance the security posture
towards assessment of GST Ecosystem and third
of GST system.
parties’ provisioning services for GST system,
GRC Compliance Assurance especially after change request are delivered.

Process is on to select a service provider to The service provider will also provide near real
ensure periodic, independent compliance time dashboard depicting complete coverage
assessment (Business Process & ISO Standard of risk & compliance of GST setup and its
Assurance) in alignment with GST Law, rules, eco-system
Acts and other applicable ISO standards. The
selected service provider will provide the above
Security Monitoring and Analytics
mentioned services to entire GST eco-system i.e. Center
GST system, GST SoC, GST NoC, GSTN, MSP,
As an additional security mechanism over and
GSP, Data Centers and other existing and future
above Security Operations Centre (SoC), work
projects in GSTN.
is underway to start Security Monitoring and
The Business Processes Assurance will provide Analytics Center (SMAC) focusing on cyber
assurance compliance against GST Laws/Rules threat management and analytics in alignment
and business processes, Software Specification with multi-threat fields, DLP Deception Tool
requirements (SRS), Software Design and implementation, forensics & analytics. SMAC
development viz-a-viz actual functionality/result would complement the existing SOC and
available in live environment and its performance. assist GSTN in managing the potential threats
This would help assessing alignment of software proactively & persistently.
functionalities with RFP requirements, whether
providing intended results, effectiveness and
coverage of test cases and testing.

35
MIS Reports and Data Sharing
with States and Centre
Summary Report for Management
The tax departments generate MIS for top management. With centralization of filing on GST portal,
MIS of various kind is generated for the top management of Central and State tax departments.
Statistics pertaining to various Modules like Registration, Returns, Payments, Refund, ITC blocked/
unblocked etc. are generated for States and Centre. Below are management level summary reports
GSTN has been sharing with States, Centre and Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance,
Government of India.

S.No. Nature of Report Frequency Output Report

1 Tax Collection Details Daily (Twice) Report # 1

2 State wise Tax Collection Details (to individual Daily (Once) Report # 2
States)

3 Daily Filling showing incremental filing details Daily (Once) Report # 3

of returns, registration, refund, demand,
recovery, appeal etc.

4 State wise Return Filing for current FY Daily (Once) Report # 5A

5 State wise Return Filing for previous FY Weekly (Once) Report # 5B

6 GSTR 3B hourly filing trend during 15-21st of Hourly Report # 6

the month

7 Payment Hourly Trend during 15-21st of the Hourly Report # 7

month

8 Refund Report Weekly (Monday) Report # 11

9 Weekly Amounts - ITC Form Weekly (Friday) Report # 12

10 Details of ITC Blocked and Unblocked Weekly (Friday) Report # 13

11 LUT - Undertaking Weekly (Monday) Report # 14

12 Active Taxpayer Report showing number of Daily (Once) Report # 15

active taxpayers of various types

13 Data transmitted to ICEGATE for Refund of Daily (Once) Report # 16

export of goods on payment of tax

Detailed Report through SFTP

Apart from summary reports, taxpayer-wise data of registration and returns are also being shared
with States and the Centre. These detailed reports are transferred through SFTP (Secure file transfer
protocol). States and CBIC download the data using their credentials by logging in to GSTN SFTP
server.

36
Below mentioned reports are being shared on daily basis using SFTP.

List of Dealers for New Registration

List of Return Filers

List of 3B Filers

Refund

Cancellation

List of Migrated dealers

Type of Reports

Tran 1 Data

Data for Dealer Distribution

Comparison of ITC VS GSTR 2A

Difference between GSTR3B and GSTR2A

Difference between GSTR3B VS GSTR1

GSTR 4 Data

Taxpayer address list

Taxpayer list- Liability above 1 Cr.

Data sharing with CBIC and Model-1 States

The forms received by GST Portal are shared with CBIC and model-1 States in real time basis,
whether these are registration forms or return forms or refund application or challans or any other
form. All forms filed on GST portal are shared with CBIC. Similarly, forms pertaining to nine Model-1
States are shared with them thru APIs. The approvals, or queries or show cause notices are shared
by CBIC and Model-1 States with GST portal in a similar manner and made available to the taxpayer
on the dashboard of the taxpayer.

Mismatch reports
GSTN generates mismatch reports based on data contained in GSTR-1 and GSTR3B returns every
quarter/month and shares the same with respective tax authorities.

Large taxpayer who default in filing return and payment of tax

Type of Reports

Difference of liability reported in GSTR3B and GSTR1

Difference ITC claimed in GSTR3B with that accruing in GSTR2A

Those who generate e-way bill but do not file returns

Stop-filers

37
SECTION III:
Operations

38
GST Portal
Operations
T
th GST Portal became operational on 8th of November 2016 when migration of then existing
taxpayers under State-VAT, Service Tax and Central Excise was started. On 25th June
2017, registration of new taxpayers under GST was started along with functionalities for tax
payments and Return filing. Functionalities for Refunds, Advance Ruling and other services relevant
to a taxpayer under GST were added subsequently. As mentioned in previous paragraph, the work
on development of software started on the high-level business processes and was further improved
on availability of draft laws and rules. The sequence of events in terms of availability of law/rules/
forms is given below.

Figure 11: Pre-GST Milestones

GST Registration document, they raise a query which is passed

on to the applicant by the GST System. On
GST Registration is the process a business submission of additional information, the tax
has to follow to get legal recognition under the officer decides the case. The entire process of
GST tax regime. This implies obtaining the GST application for GSTIN to approval is workflow
Identification Number (GSTIN) from the concerned driven and is an automated operation.
State/Centre tax authorities. In order to obtain
GSTIN, the taxpayer has to provide details of the The initial GST registration started from
applicant business entity, its promoters, principal migrating 84 lakhs taxpayers of erstwhile regime
place of business, additional place of business, of State-VAT, Service Tax and Central Excise
details of Authorized Signatory, Commodities/ by providing them Provisional IDs. Out of this,
services, bank account details etc. 64.3 lakhs taxpayers completed the process by
providing all required details. Further 60 lakhs
The PAN of the applicant entity and those pf new registrations have taken place under GST so
promoters and authorised signatories is first far for regular, Composition, Online Information
validated with CBDT and then passed on to the Database Access and Retrieval services, UN
respective tax officers. In case the tax officers Bodies, Non-Resident Taxpayer, Casual, TDS
have any query or need more information or and TCS.

39
Payment amount thru ECS. Till 15th March 2019, refund
claim of Rs 74,402 Crores was shared by this
The GST Payments modules allow the taxpayer automated system with ICEGATE.
to create and generate Challan and use it
to make GST payments through online and The other part of refund takes care of various
offline payment modes. The payment module types of Refund to settle any amount that is due
was released to taxpayers on 1st July 2017. to the taxpayer from the tax administration. For
The online payment mode consists of Internet these cases, separate application has to be filed
Banking and NEFT/RTGS. GSTN has integrated on the GST portal along with required supporting
with 25 banks authorized by the Government document as provided under the law. The refund
for Internet Banking, Over the Counter Payment module handles following types of cases
and with Reserve Bank of India for NEFT/RTGS.
Under NEFT/RTGS mode, a taxpayer can chose {{ Refund of Excess Balance of Electronic
any one of more than 400 commercial banks for Cash ledger,
making payment of taxes. Around 25 to 30 lakh
{{ Export of Service with payment of tax,
payment transactions take place on the GST
portal every month and large part of it takes place {{ Export of Goods and Service without
on 18th to 20th of the month. payment of tax,

{{ Refund on account of ITC accumulated due

Return to inverted tax structure,

In GST regime, every registered taxpayer is {{ Refund on account of Supplies to SEZ Units
mandated to file the relevant returns based on with payment of tax,
the type of registration. The GSTR3B summary {{ Refund on account of Supplies to SEZ Units
return for regular taxpayer has been operational without payment of tax,
from 5th Aug 2017 and the return for all outward
supplies (GSTR1) was made operational on 24th {{ Recipient of deemed export,
July 2017. GSTR-2 was also made operational {{ Refund on tax paid on an intra state supply
in August 2017 but has been kept in abeyance. which is subsequently held to be Inter State
Similarly, GSTR 3 was developed but never used. Supply and
The returns for other categories of taxpayers i.e.
GSTR5, GSTR6, GSTR7, GSTR8, GSTR10, {{ Refund on account of other reasons.
GSTR11 have also been made operational.
The annual return for regular and composition Facility has been provided to 27 model-II states
taxpayer was notified in Sept 2018 and made to process and sanction refund orders and API’s
operational in March 2019. for the same has been made available to model-1
States and CBIC.
Refund
Advance Ruling
Refund applications are handled in two ways. For
export of goods made on payment of tax is handled “Advance ruling” means a decision provided by
through ICEGATE system of Customs (CBIC). the Authority or the Appellate Authority to an
The return itself is treated as the application for applicant on matters or on questions specified in
refund and data on export of goods is shared with sub-section (2) of section 97 or subsection (1) of
ICEGATE provided tax paid with GSTR-3B is section 100 of the CGST Act, 2017, in relation
more than the refund of tax claimed as per export to the supply of goods or services or both being
table of GSTR1 and details of port code and undertaken or proposed to be undertaken by the
shipping bills are given in GSTR-1. On validation applicant. An advance ruling helps the applicant
of these items, the GST system shares the export in planning his activities which are liable for
invoices along with shipping bill and port code payment of GST, well in advance. It also brings
with ICEGAT of Customs. The ICEGATE system certainty in determining the tax liability, as the
checks these details with its own database and ruling given by the Authority for Advance Ruling
if found correct, shares the details with Pr Chief is binding on the applicant as well as Government
Controller of Accounts for transferring the refund authorities.

40
The applicant seeking advance ruling has to the concerned officer and if necessary, call
to file an application in the prescribed form, upon the officer to furnish the relevant records.
accompanied along with the prescribed fee, to The application for taxpayer to apply for advance
the Authority on the GST Portal. On receipt of the ruling and the backend modules for the appellate
application, the authority forwards a copy thereof authorities is operational from 18th April 2018.

Figure 12: Post-GST Milestones

Portal Operational Statistics

SOME PORTAL STATISTICS AT A GLANCE

1. The GST portal was made live on 01st July 2017. Considering the notifications that were issued
and also to implement continuous changes to improve the GST System, as well as to fine tune
it, night times were used to deploy the configuration and software updates. Overall, the portal
was available to tax payers for > 95 % of the time.

Figure 13

41
2. Total concurrent active user sessions at any one given time on peak filing day has hovered
around 1.2 Lac. Maximum number of returns filed in a single day was 18 Lacs with 8 lac payment
transactions on 20th of November, 2017.

Figure 14

3. The portal is constantly monitored by the operations teams of GSTN (from the GSTN office) and
by Infosys (from the Network Operations Center – at Gurgaon). The performance is monitored
on real time basis, through tools like Kibana that is able to provide near-real time graphical
representations of the portal performance.

Figure 15

42
 GST System Operational Statistics (as on 20th March 2019)

Registered Total Return Total No. of Total Invoice

Taxpayer Filed Payment Uploaded
Transactions

1.20 Cr 24.04 Cr 7.97 Cr 500 Cr

Payment through Total Returns Total Payments

the Portal Transactions Transactions
(Excluding IGST in a day in a day
on import)

13.49 Lakh Cr 18 Lakh 9 Lakh

GST Helpdesk: Engaging with the o Helpdesk is currently serving 12 million

taxpayers spread across the country.
taxpayers
o Helpdesk is assisting taxpayers pan India
GST Helpdesk started functioning from 8th through inbound voice support and written
November 2016 with an aim to support the grievances received through Grievance
taxpayers relating to their queries on migration Redressal portal
of taxpayers from then existing tax system to
new GST system. For the launch of GST, the full- o 52% drop in taxpayer queries has
fledged GST Helpdesk was established which been achieved during last 18 months
started functioning from 25th June 2017 to support due to knowledge transformation and
the taxpayers. With its 16 hours availability every implementation of Grievance Redressal
day and a motivated and trained workforce, GST Portal
Helpdesk has played a critical role in ensuring a
smooth transition to the new tax regime Initially GST helpdesk started with two
communication channels: Voice and email. The
volumes and emails received at the helpdesk
from the starting of the GST was exceptionally
high. Around 5.75 Lac calls were received in
the first month itself. The volume continued to
be similar for next 7 months. In order to cater to
such high volumes the agents supporting the tax
payers was increased accordingly.

43
 Figure 16

Figure 17

Grievance Redressal Portal Grievance Redressal Portal was developed where

user is asked to choose subject (category) and
It was noticed that taxpayers were marking multiple sub-subject (sub-category) before writing the
authorities while sending their grievances by complaint. The user is also provided mechanism to
email. This was leading to multiple communication upload screenshots to explain the problem faced
for one grievance. Also, it was taking long time to by him. This way portal provides opportunity to
read and categorize the email based on type of submit structured information which helps quicker
query. To improve grievances received by email, resolution of the issues.

44
The Grievance Redressal Portal (GRP) is also etc. The Grievance Redressal Portal did not only
aligned with the knowledge articles related to reduce the number of electronic grievances but
each issue category, providing the tax payer also shortened the response/resolution time. The
a self-help support in terms of related FAQs, trend of grievances filed on GRP given below
videos, link to relevant pages of user manual shows the downward trend.

Figure 18

Knowledge Enhancement Customer Engagement

Helpdesk agents supporting the tax payers are Standard monitoring methodology is used
thoroughly trained on each module by GSTN to monitor customer experience. Customer
Officials before the module or functionality is Satisfaction surveys of the services are done
launched. Regular refresher trainings are held to regularly to measure the same.
enhance the knowledge of the agents.
Service Excellence
As far as taxpayers are concerned, they are being
empowered with the information pertaining to Effective Quality Management System is
various functionalities of GST System in the form implemented to enhance quality of responses
of User Manual, FAQ, short videos, webinars in provided to the tax payers, the agents are
multiple languages etc. Before launch of a new monitored for their communication skills and
functionality or improved functionality on account responses. Regular feedbacks are also provided
of change in rules, webinars are conducted in to improve the same. Quality Trends for the
multiple languages apart from making available helpdesk agents is depicted below:
FAQ and User Manual.

45
 Figure 19

{{ Effective access control systems are {{ Various quality and service improvement
implemented to ensure maintaining the plans are implemented and executed to
confidentiality of the information through enhance quality of service provided to the
various security measures. tax payers.

Listening to the Consumer

Feedback Analysis for GST Portal and GST Helpdesk Services
One of the key elements of our strategy has been to keep our ears close to the ground and keep
a constant tab on the feedback flowing back from the users of the GST system. Reacting to this
feedback immediately and effectively has helped us provide a consistently improving user experience
to taxpayers.

GSTN conducts regular surveys with the taxpayers to collect valuable feedback on the following:

1. User experience of GST Portal – this is a survey form that is sent daily to randomly selected
taxpayers out of everyone who used GST Portal on previous day. Presently this survey is being
sent over email, the survey will be integrated with functional pages of GST Portal. The portal will
then prompt taxpayer to provide feedback after completing an activity.

46
The following is the cumulative satisfaction ratings for the GST Portal user experience:

Figure 20

1. Satisfaction of the GST Helpdesk Services

a. Survey conducted based on ticket raised – this is a survey conducted amongst all taxpayers
who report a problem to GST Helpdesk via a ticket (GRP). The feedback is solicited via
email once the problem is resolved by the helpdesk team.

b. Survey conducted over IVRS – this is a satisfaction rating for taxpayers who call the GST
Helpline.

The following is the CSAT performance for the GST Helpdesk Services

Figure 21

47
GSP Eco-System: Partners in Fin-tech companies, which are providing services
suiting to requirement of various industries and
GST Transformation
of various sizes of taxpayers.

The taxpayers access the tax system through The GSPs provide innovative and convenient
a portal. While designing the GST System, we methods to taxpayers and other stakeholders in
examined the possibility of providing other ways interacting with the GST Systems from uploading
to connect with GST System keeping in view of invoice details to filing of returns. Thus, there
advancement made in information technology are two sets of interactions, one between the
and the variety of modes available. Since tax payer as an App user with the GSP and the
GST system was designed as a platform, idea second between the GSP and the GST System.
emerged to enable third party applications that will In many cases the GSP is also the Application
connect with GST system via secure GST system provider. In short GSP led applications provide
APIs and enable taxpayers to access the GST mechanism to taxpayers to interact with GST
System via desktop, mobile and other interfaces. system without going to GST Portal. The figure
Developers of such applications were given a below indicates a high level diagram of access to
generic name, GST Suvidha Provider or GSP. GST Core system by a taxpayer through the GST
This led to development of a large eco-system of portal or a GSP portal.

Figure 22: Concept of GST Suvidha Provider (GSP)

The diagram below depicts a generic case of how the GSP and tax payer would interact with the GST
System.

Figure 23: Tax Payers’ GSP Interface

48
GSPs as GST facilitators by many GSPs is the automatic reconciliation
of purchases made (GSTR-2A from the GST
The GSPs not only provide GST related services portal) vis-à-vis the purchase register of the
to the tax payers but also help them maintain businesses. Additionally, they provide custom
their individual business ledgers (sales ledger solutions to industry/sector/trade specific needs
and purchase ledger) and accounts. They also of the taxpayers. The service delivery by GSP
provide other value added services around eco-system is given in the diagram below:
GST compliance. An important service provided

Figure 24:

Tax Payer Services consumed via MPLS lines to assure KYC of GSPs.
All APIs are accessed over HTTPS protocol. The
Taxpayer convenience is a key determinant benefits of API based integration are:
of success of the GST regime. The taxpayer {{ onsumption across technologies and
C
is expected to have a choice to use third party platforms (mobile, tablets, desktops, etc.)
applications on desktops, laptops and mobiles based on the individual requirements
to connect with GST System. Majority of GST
system functionalities related to taxpayer’s GST {{ Automated upload and download of data
compliance requirements are now available to {{ bility to adapt to changing taxation and
A
the GSP through APIs. GSPs use GST APIs and other business rules and end user usage
enrich and enhance the taxpayers’ experience. models.
(The APIs of GST System are RESTful, json-
based and stateless). {{ Integration with customer software (ERP,
Accounting systems) that taxpayers and
GST System is not deliberately made available others are already using for their day to day
over the Internet for reasons of security. The activities
production API end points of GSPs can only be

49
GSP contribution and Current companies/organization were selected as GSPs.
Status
In addition to the private companies, Govt
GSPs were selected by GSTN in two batches departments/agencies like State GST
through a transparent participatory process Commissioner of Karnataka, BSNL, CDSL,
conducted at national level. Qualified software Gujarat Livelihood Promotion Company Ltd have
product and IT enabled service providing also been on-boarded as GSPs.
companies working in the financial technology
domain were invited to be GSPs. An evaluation
The contribution from GSPs in the last 18 months
committee comprising of external experts
has been substantial as will be evident from the
conducted face-to-face evaluations of the
growing volume of invoice ingestion into GST
prospective candidates and selected 34 GSPs.
System through GSPs, which currently stands
These 34 GSPs began their services after the
around 25 – 28 % of total invoices uploaded.
GST law became effective from 01st July 2017.
The trend of invoice uploading into GST system
After 3-4 months of their operation, a second
through the GSPs is shown in the graphs given
batch announcement was made and another 38
below:

Figure 25

LIST OF GOVT. AGENCIES SELECTED AS GSP

1 3 Gujarat Livelihood Promotion

BSNL
Company (GLPC)

2 Commissioner of Commercial Taxes 4

CDSL
(CCT, Karnataka)

50
 LIST OF GSPs BATCH-1

1 16
Alankit limited Reliance Corporate IT Park Limited

2 17 Seshaasai Business Forms Private

Bodhtree Consulting limited
Limited

3 18
Botree Software International Pvt. Ltd. Shalibhadra Finance Limited

4 Computer Age Management Services 19

SISL Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
Private Limited

5 20
Cygnet Infotech Private Ltd Skill Lotto Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

6 21
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP Spice Digital Limited

7 22 Sugal & Damani Utility Services

Ernst & Young LLP
Private Limited

8 23
Excellon Software Pvt. Ltd. TATA consultancy services Limited

9 24
Hazel Mercantile Limited Taxmann Publications Pvt. Ltd.

10 25
IRIS BUSINESS SERVICES LIMITED Tera Software Limited

11 Karvy Data Management Services 26

Trust Systems & Software (I) Pvt. Ltd.
Limited

12 27
Masters India Private Limited Clayfin Technologies Pvt Ltd

13 MothersonSumi infotech & Designs 28

Velocis Systems Pvt. Ltd.
Ltd.

14 NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure 29 Vertex Customer Management India

Limited Private Limited

15 30
RAMCO SYSTEMS LIMITED WeP Solutions Limited

51
 LIST OF GSPs BATCH-2

1 (n) Code Solutions- A Division of 20

Image Infosystems Pvt Ltd
GNFC Ltd.

2 21
3i Infotech Ltd KPMG India Private Limited

3 22
A P R A & Associates Manuh Global Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

4 23
Aarms Value Chain Pvt Ltd Medhassu E Solutions (India) Pvt Ltd

5 24
Abhipra Capital Limited Net Access India Limited

6 25
Adaequare Info Private Limited Netxcell Limited

7 26 Payswiff Solutions Private Limited

Agile Labs Private Limited
(Earlier Paynear Solutions Private Limited)

8 27
Balaji Mariline Pvt Ltd Perennial Systems

9 28 PricewaterhouseCoopers Private
BCITS Private Limited
Limited

10 29
BDO India LLP Professional Softec Private Limited

11 30
Binary Semantics Limited RajCOMP Info Services Limited

12 31 Span Across IT Solutions Private

CDSL Ventures Limited
Limited (Taxspanner)

13 Chartered Information Systems 32

Sreeven Infocom Limited
Private Limited

14 33
Compare Infobase Limited Tally ( India) Private Ltd

15 CSC eGovernance Services India 34 VG Learning Destination (India)

Limited Pvt. Ltd.
16 Diya Systems (Mangalore) Private 35
Webtel Electrosoft Private Limited
Limited

17 36
E-Connect Soluttions Pvt. Ltd Winman Software Private Limited

18 37
Focus Softnet Pvt Ltd Zephyr Limited

19 Gamut Infosystems Ltd 38

Zoho Corporation

52
Status of Implementation of Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh,
Meghalaya).
E-Way Bill
(d.) Few more states started E-Way bill
1. E-Way Bill started on 1st April 2018 for for Intra state movement of goods like
consignment value exceeding Rs. 50,000 Nagaland (form 30.04.2018), Assam
for Inter-State supplies and Intra-state (from 16.05.2018) and Rajasthan
for Karnataka State. As per decision of (from 20.05.2018).
GST Council, EWB for intra-state was
(e.) Two states started E-Way bill for Intra
implemented in a staggered manner for
state movement of goods on trial
remaining States.
basis: Punjab (from 18.05.2018) and
2. Details on start of Intra-state E-Way bills Odhisa (from 23.05.2018).
are given below:
(f.) Maharashtra, Manipur & All UTs
(a.) On 15th April, E-Way Bill systems for (Without Legislature-Chandigarh,
Intra-State movement of goods, was Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and
implemented for States of Andhra Diu, Lakshadweep, Andaman and
Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Telangana Nicobar Islands) started E-Way bill
& Uttar Pradesh. for Intra state movement of goods on
24.05.2018.
(b.) On 20th April, EWB systems for
intra state movement of goods (g.) Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jammu & Kashmir
was implemented in 6 new states, & Mizoram (01.06.18), Tamil Nadu
i.e, Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand, (02.06.18), West Bengal (03.06.18)
Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh and and Delhi (16.06.18) started Intra-
Tripura. state movement of goods in June.

(c.) 4 states and one UT has started the 3. As on 3rd March 2019 more than 50 Crores
intra state movement of goods from EWBs have been generated. Highlights are
25th April 2018 (Puducherry, Madhya given below:

50

35
crores

25
15
crores

10
crores
crores
crores

1
crores

15th April, 24th June, 28th July, 29th Sep, 30th Nov, 1st March
2018 2018 2018 2018 2018 2019

53
54
 Figure 26

4. Facility has been provided for the transporter required to submit preliminary report within
to submit a grievance at E-Way Bill portal if 24 hours of such inspection and final report
the conveyance has been detained by the within 3 days of such inspection. Taxpayers
officer for more than 30 mins. Similarly, the has been provided with user manual & FAQ
officers who conduct inspection/verification for their guidance.
of e-way bill/conveyance vehicle are

55
SECTION IV:
Ensuring
Transparency &
Accountability

56
Assurance
through Right to
Information
Even though Goods and Services Tax Network (“GSTN”) was incorporated as a private not for profit
company, the management took a decision to keep it under the purview of the RTI Act, 2005 since its
inception. This has ensured transparency on the various technological facets of GST Portal within
the bounds of RTI Act, 2005. In compliance of the RTI Act, 2005, GSTN has published suo-moto
disclosures on GSTN’s website and has appointed Public Information Officer and First Appellate
Authority. As on date CPIO, GSTN has answered to number of RTI applications and there are few
First Appeals that have been disposed off by the First Appellate Authority. At present there are no
cases pending against GSTN before CIC. Detailed summary of RTI’s and First Appeals in respect of
Year 2017 and 2018 are given below:

RTI DETAIL (For the Year 2017 and 2018)

S. NO. PARTICULAR 2017 2018 Total

1 RTI Received 143 215 358

2 Appeal to First Apellate 06 08 14

Authority (FAA)

Financial Audit Accountants firm appointed by board of GSTN,

CAG auditor also conducted the expenditure
The Central Government while approving audit of GSTN since inception till 2016 with no
creation of GSTN also approved a non-recurring audit qualification/observation.
grant of Rs 315 Crores for three years. This was
done to help the company set up its operation During the FY 2017-18 onwards, the CAG has
and take care of its expenses before it could appointed an Auditor for conducting the Statutory
start generating its own resources. However Audit of Accounts of GSTN. Further the office
GSTN utilized only a portion of grant-in-aid. of CAG also conducted the supplementary
Being recipient of Government Grant, GSTN has Audit of Accounts of GSTN. However, no audit
also been following all the provisions of General qualification was reported by the CAG.
Financial Rules and its amendments issued time
to time. Though as per provision of The Companies Acts
2013 or any other Laws, GSTN is not required to
Under the provisions of CAG (DPC) Act, 1971 appoint an Internal Auditor for carrying out the
wherein all recipients of Government grants have Internal Audit of its Accounts & Internal Systems.
to be audited by Office of the Comptroller and However, as a best corporate governance
Auditor General of India (CAG), accordingly in practice, Internal audit is being carried out
addition of statuary audit conducted by Chartered since the beginning of its operations and the

57
recommendations thereof are being implemented Audit by CAG
to achieve better control and improvement of
processes. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of
India has also conducted performance audit of
Auditing of GST System by CAG GST System Project. The aim of performance
– Continual Improvement audit / IT audit was deriving assurance on
whether the development, implementation and
A key element of Quality Assurance and Continual maintenance of GST Systems Project and its IT
Improvement Mechanism at GSTN is periodic systems meets the business goals, safeguards
Internal and External Audits. Governance Risk and information assets and maintains data integrity.
Compliance (GRC) team at GSTN is responsible The key objective of Performance Audit / IT
for creating policies and processes as per the Audit by CAG was to assess whether the
need of the GST system project and ensuring modules implemented by GSTN are in line with
that these are adhered to during the course of the the provisions of the Acts and Rules governing
project by the team members. The GRC team is the GST regime and System Requirement
also responsible for Internal Audits for continual Specifications (SRS) and these modules /
improvements of processes. External audits are business processes have resulted in ease of
to be performed by government agencies, such doing business to the taxpayers and hassle free
as Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), system to the stakeholders.
Standardization Testing & Quality Certification
(STQC), and other external bodies. The scope of performance audit/IT audit by
CAG included acquisition of the hardware and
the business solution, System Development,
Audit by Internal Audit Team IS Security and Business Continuity – all of
(GRC Team) which are specific areas of Information System
implementation. The audit by CAG was planned
By conducting regular Internal Audits, the GRC in a phased manner and in the 1st Phase
team ensures that the GST System has proper audit scope was limited to implementation of
governance, risk management and control three modules developed namely, tax payer
processes. During audit, they also identify the Registration, Payments and IGST settlement.
continual improvement opportunities. The internal Apart from these functional modules, aspects
audit function helps in identifying the deficiencies of Change Management, Information Security
in GST System and real values are derived from and Business Continuity Management were also
focus on continual improvement. audited during this phase.

Audit by STQC The audit was conducted during May – August

2018 by a team of 13 Auditors and it started
with entry conference and concluded with exit
In GSTN, the external audit mechanism was
conference in December 2018.
built in the GST system from the beginning of
the project and periodic auditing was in place for
all major deliverables. STQC, being an external Methodology used by CAG during the audit:
auditing agency was engaged from Software
Requirement Specification (SRS) phase and 1. Presentations from GSTN team on business
their services will remain operational until ISO processes, workflows, and approach/
Certification is obtained by GSTN (to be conducted methodology
during operation phase of GST System Project). 2. Walkthrough of GST Application
STQC has performed SRS review, Process audit,
Functional audit, Inventory (Data centers) audit, 3. Interviews of Functional and Technical
Security Testing (VA/PT), and Security audit and Subject Matter Experts
will be performing compliance review for ISO
4. Functional testing of identified services
27001, ISO 20000-1 & ISO 22301.
under GST System

58
5. Verification of functional and technical shared. While some of them were implemented
documents during the audit phase itself, for the remaining
recommendations, a plan and timeline for
6. Execution of real time queries
implementation was shared with CAG as Audit
response. The same was also explained in the
As part of Audit testing of forms and functionalities exit conference.
as envisaged in relevant Acts and rules
governing GST and SRS were first conducted
This internal and external assurance mechanism
on Training (replica of production environment)
along with other quality & security controls helps
and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) environment
GST portal in proactively indenting improvement
of the GST system followed by audit testing in
opportunities and making the system robust,
production environment. Data from production
helping GSTN provide ease of doing business
environment was also analysed for validation of
to the taxpayers and hassle free system to the
various audit checks.
stakeholders.

As an outcome of the audit, improvement

opportunities and audit observations were

59
SECTION V:
Outreach &
Capability
Building

60
GSTN Outreach
Initiatives
With the rollout of GST ushering in a completely new tax system, it required massive outreach and
capacity building initiatives to positively engage and educate all stakeholders from taxpayers to tax
officials. The initial few weeks of the GST roll out were marked by a palpable sense of apprehension
and concern among all stakeholders, particularly the taxpayers. Infusing confidence and assurance
among stakeholders was one of our key objectives and we sought to do this by actively engaging
with them constantly through a series of measures. We actively uploaded learning material and other
information on the help section and other social media channels.

1. The help section on the GST through each functionality on the GST portal.
As and when a new functionality is released
portal (https://www.gst.gov.in/ its User Manual is provided to taxpayers to
help/helpmodules/). use the functionality on GST Portal.

It has been designed to provide access to {{ So far 190 topics have been covered
various learning material in the form of User through User Manuals (FO) on GST
Manuals, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), Portal for taxpayers.
Computer Based Tutorials and Short Videos for {{ User manuals can be easily downloaded
taxpayers regarding the front end processes by the Taxpayers in form of PDF files or
like Registration, Returns, Payment etc. This printed.
section provides learning material on various
functionalities and the repository is constantly 1.3 CBT & Short Videos
updated as and when a new functionality is
introduced on the GST Portal.The topics are The purpose of creating Computer Based
divided in the form of modules and each section Tutorials (CBTs) is to demonstrate the
has relevant User Manual, FAQs and CBT/Video. workflows on GST Portal with explanation.
These tutorials are a mix of audio and video
1.1 FAQs: files to disseminate information related to
various functionalities on GST portal.
Frequently Asked Questions have been
compiled to assist the taxpayers in giving {{ In the financial year 2017-18, 11 CBTs
insight into specific queries related to each and 34 Short videos were uploaded in
functionality on the GST Portal. This section help section of GST Portal to guide the
also has a search functionality, which enables taxpayers
the taxpayers to search for a specific query, {{ ince April 2018, 20 CBTs/Videos were
S
rather than going through all questions. uploaded in help section of GST Portal
{{ o far FAQs on 187 topics have been
S to guide the taxpayers
updated in the help section upto March {{ 4 videos and CBTs have also been
5
2019. published on the GSTN YouTube
{{ AQs can easily be downloaded by the
F channel for guidance of stake holders
taxpayers in form of PDF files or printed.
(https://www.youtube.com/c/
1.2 User Manuals goodsandservicestaxnetwork)

User manuals are a set of detailed step by

step guides for the taxpayer to navigate

61
1.4 Learning Material for Tax {{ 53 User Manuals, 51 FAQs,7 CBTs
Officials {{ 1
2 Videos have been uploaded in the
year 2017-18
Much like for taxpayers, an entire gamut
of learning material has also been created {{ 1
08 User Manuals, 109 FAQs, 2 Short
and uploaded for the tax officials and can be Videos were uploaded in the year 2018-
accessed by them after logging into the back 19
office Portal, under the help section. User
Manuals, FAQs, CBTs & Quick Videos on Broad categories or topics under the help section
all the functionalities have been provided for provided to tax officials are given below:
the education of Tax officials

62
2. Classroom Training of Tax 1924 Participants were trained as Master
trainers and these Master trainers cascaded
Officials & Other Stakeholders
the training in their respective states.

GSTN’s Outreach and Capability Building (OCB)

endeavors have been designed keeping in mind
2.3 State Tax Official Training by
the information needs of various stakeholders
Master Trainers
of GST like Trade Bodies, Tax Departments State Tax Official Training by Master
& Taxpayers etc. The objective has been Trainers was organised during the
dissemination of information related to GST period from 6th March 2017 to 30 June
Portal to the relevant stakeholders regarding 2017. Training of remaining tax officials
various functionalities available on GST Portal were conducted across all States/ UTs /
& how to use them. Training of tax officials is CBIC in India by the Master Trainers
an important element of this process. A series who were training by GSTN in Infosys
of training and information sessions have been Campus at Chennai. 60,741 tax officials
conducted over the past two years to prepare tax were trained across the country by
officials for a new role under a new tax regime. these Master Trainers over a period of 4
months. Registration, Returns & Payment
2.1 Workshop for State Training Modules were covered in these trainings.
Coordinators in New Delhi
First Workshop for State Training
2.4
Training of State/UT tax
Coordinators (STCs) was organized on 6th
officials through WebEx/ Video
December, 2016 at GSTN office. 64 State/
Conferencing
UT/CBIC Tax Officials from all over India
Follow up training sessions were conducted
attended the said workshop. Agenda was
during the period between September 2017
preparation for the Master Trainers Training
to November, 2018 using webex and Video
to be conducted at Chennai. Training covered
conferencing.
features and functions about LMS (Learning
Management System) and Training Modules Training of State/UT tax officials
& nominations of Master Trainers for the through WebEx were conducted
training. Second Workshop for State Training during the period September, 2017
Coordinators was organized on 24th March to November, 2018. 332 Tax officials
2017 at GSTN office. 58 State/UT/CBIC Tax across India were trained using Webex
Officials from all over India attended the facility in 8 sessions of Webex. Topics
said workshop. Agenda was preparation for covered were Registration application
trainings by Master Trainers Training trained & its processing, Returns & Offline
at Chennai to train remaining tax officials. utility, Update Authorized Signatory,
Training covered features and functions about Cancellation of Provisional registration,
LMS (Learning Management System) and Appeal against the cancellation
activities to be performed in LMS, Facilitation of registration, Opt in and Out of
skills for technical training, Usage of Training Composition levy, Core and Non-core
Environment etc. Amendments & its processing, Advance
ruling, GSTP etc.
2.2
National Master Trainers
Training State/UT tax officials trainings via Video
Conferencing were conducted during
National Master Trainers Training at Chennai the month of March, 2018. 223 Tax
Infosys Campus was organized from 9th officials across India were trained using
Feb 2017 to 25th February 2017 at Infosys video conferencing facility. 5 sessions
Campus, Chennai. 1622 Tax Officials from of training through video conferencing
State and 302 Tax Officials from CBIC and were conducted. Topics covered were
23 Officials from CAG were trained. Training Form GSTR-3B & Form ITC-03 and
was completed in 28 Batches of three days other latest functionalities released on
each. Registration, Returns & Payment GST Portal.
Modules were covered in trainings. In all,

63
 2.5
Training of State/CBIC tax modules of Registration, Returns & Payments
officials were covered in the session.

State/UT/CBIC tax officials training was 3.2 Training of Executives of GST

conducted during the month of April 2018 to Helpdesk
December 2018. As on 31st December 2018,
training has been conducted in 44 locations in
GST Help Desk comprises of 400+ Executives
which more than 3,850 tax officials of States/
which resolve the queries /issues raised by
UT/CBIC were trained, on various aspects
the taxpayers and other stakeholders through
of GST Portal. Training covered agenda of
a dedicated call centre. These agents attend
Refund, Procedure for recovery of Arrears
to phone calls and emails of taxpayers
and Reversal of Inadmissible ITC, Merchant
regarding issues faced by them on GST
and deemed exports, Returns & Back Office
portal for their GST related compliances.
functionalities for Model II States/ UTs.
These helpdesk agents are trained by GSTN
Workshop for Master Trainers (Model II Training Team on the various modules of
States/ UTs) in Back office functionalities GST Portal in various trainings sessions.
in three Batches for tax officials of Model II Sessions were conducted via Classroom
States/ UTs were organized in GSTN Aerocity sessions as well as Virtual Sessions using
office. These trainings were organized during webex facility. Topics covered in sessions
the month of November and December 2018. were Enrolment, Registration, Amendment
The Agenda covered were Assessment, of Registration, Payment, Returns (GSTR 1,
Appeals, Adjudication and Recovery Modules GSTR 2, GSTR 3B, GSTR 4, GSTR 6, and
in Back Office. Total 165 officials of 27 Model GSTR 11), Refund, TRAN 1 & 2, Composition
II States/UTs were trained in these three Scheme, Electronic Ledger, offline utility
batches. functionalities, GSTP, Eway bill etc.

3.3 Workshop for DDOs & TDS

3. Workshops for stakeholders Deductors
3.1 NIELIT /CSC 4 workshop sessions of one day each
were conducted for DDOs, TDS Deductors
Workshops were conducted between GSTN & Accounting Authorities in the month of
and NIELIT (National Institute of Electronics August, 2018
& Information Technology) & CSC (Common
Service Center) - e-Gov to train their Trainings were conducted for DDO’s & TDS
representatives as Master Trainers on Front Deductors at NACIN, Faridabad for CBIC
end Modules of GST Portal. officials, at GSTN office at Aerocity for all
States/ UTs & at INGAF, Delhi for Pr CCA
MOU was signed between GSTN and NIELIT officers
(National Institute of Electronics & Information
Technology) & CSC (Common Service 4. GSTN helpdesk at IITF, Pragati
Center) - e-Gov to train their representatives Maidan, New Delhi
as Master Trainers on Front end Modules of
GST Portal. Training was conducted in NIELIT With a large number of businesses from across
Location at Kolkata in June 6th 2017, where India and abroad converging every year at the
33 participants attended two day training India International Trade Fair, GSTN operated
as Master Trainers. Trained NIELT Trainers special helpdesks at the annual trade event to
further trained 757 stakeholders and have help non-resident taxable persons and casual
planned further trainings. In CSC e-Gov 37 taxpayers complete their GST-related obligations
officials were trained as Master Trainers on easily. The helpdesks were operated at the IITF
15th September and these Master trainers both in 2017 as well as 2018 and played a crucial
further cascaded the training to VLE (Village role in easing tax compliance and enabling
Level Entrepreneurs) across India. Front end business transactions.

64
The helpdesk was attended by members from The various social media channels maintained by
GSTN Training, Technology and Services Team GSTN are as follows:
members. During this period visitors (taxpayers)
approached the helpdesk regarding information 5.1 GSTNYouTubeChannel:
on various issues related to GST Portal. The (https://www.youtube.com/c/
taxpayers were properly guided on the above goodsandservicestaxnetwork)
aspects to their satisfaction. GSTN team also got
15 taxpayers registered on the spot as casual
taxpayers and payment of advance tax was also This channel was designed with a purpose
made by them. In some cases, facility of on the to educate the stakeholders on various
spot filing of registration /and amendment were aspects of GST Portal, through various
provided. Printed material on step to step guide tools like webinar, videos, interviews etc.
to file Form GSTR 1 / GSTR 3B and using offline GSTN develops and uploads content on the
utility / Help booklet in respect of casual /non- channel, as and when new functionalities
resident taxpayer, advisories were distributed to are made available for end users. The total
the visitors. subscribers of the channel as on 18 Dec
2018 were 56,788.

5. Social Media Presence As of now 26 Official Guides (Short Videos)

on Front End Processes like Registration,
GSTN social media handles have been Returns, and Payment etc; 100 Webinar
instrumental in disseminating information Recordings; 18 Interviews; 12 videos on
about new releases on the GST Portal as ‘GST Ki Master Class’ conducted by senior
well as grievance redressal & guidance for officials of the Ministry of Finance & GSTN
the stakeholders. The growth in number of and 3 Short Films on Registration & Returns
subscribers to GSTN social media channel are available on the channel.
has been organic, purely based on the content
uploaded in the form of short videos, webinars,
its various posts etc.

65
5.2 Twitter: @askGstech is also shared through the twitter handle.

Twitter handle of GSTN is actively used to When taxpayers’ tweet about the technical
provide information and clarifications to glitches experienced by them or other
stakeholders on the GST Portal. The no. of application issues being faced by them,
followers of @askGstech as on 1st Dec 2018 the same are also resolved/ answered by
were 88,290. Over 500 creatives have been the Services or Technical Team members
posted on @askGstech on new functionalities of GSTN on our twitter handle. On issues
released on the GST Portal, FAQs related to concerning large number of taxpayers,
various functionalities of GST Portal; Step application fixes are done by GSTN at the
by step guide on filing refunds, returns etc. earliest.
information & statistics related to E-Way Bill

5.3 Facebook: gstsystemsindia 5.4 Webinars

i. On an average, more than 2000 people Webinars were and still are being actively
follow the posts made by us on GSTN used as a means for dissemination of
Facebook page. knowledge to stakeholders about how to use
new functionalities released on GST portal at
ii) Since June 2017 till Dec 2018, a
regular intervals. GSTN has been regularly
total of 1119 posts were posted on
conducting these webinars in partnership
the Facebook page. These included
with National e-governance Division (NeGD)
6 videos on GST Ki Master Class, 2
& Digital India. Email/SMS to Taxpayers/
Short Films,9 Videos on Process of
Stakeholders are being sent communicating
Registration on GST Portal. The GSTN
the link for registration and other information
Facebook page has 17,989 followers
regarding webinars.
and has garnered 16,732 likes.

66
 Communication of the details is also i. Webinar for Tax Deductors on
done through the GST Portal and social Online Filing of Form GSTR 7 on
media channels of GSTN like Twitter GST Portal (Hindi & English)
and Facebook.
ii. Webinar for Tax Deductors on Filing
GSTN officials choose the topics of Form GSTR-7 using Offline tool
which are relevant to stakeholders and on GST Portal (Hindi, English &
prepare the salient features in a PPT. Tamil)
Most of the new functionalities released
In 2017-18 total of 48 webinars were
on GST portal are being shown as a
conducted for Tax payers. In 2018 -19
demonstration through webinars. Other
(upto 7th March 2019) 55 webinars
topics like New features of E-Way Bill
have been conducted on topics which
and Front processes like registration,
include E-Way Bill , Grievance portal,
return, advance ruling and payment of
DRC-03, DRC-06, filing Appeal and
GST portal are also covered through
other new functionalities released on
the webinars.
GST portal.
The relevant queries of the viewers Viewership on the GSTN YouTube
are also answered during and after the Channel, exclusively for the webinars
webinars. Often, the queries are also is more than 5 lacs. The total views
resolved through giving comments on are more than 15 lacs for the webinars
YouTube channel. including the viewership in digital India
channel.
Webinars are also conducted in various
regional languages apart from Hindi &
5.5 Newsletters
English to reach to larger taxpayer base.
GSTN internal resources conducted the All the outreach initiatives taken during each
webinars in English, Hindi, Marathi, month are captured in the newsletters and
Tamil and Malayalam. While some published on the GSTN website (https://www.
webinars in Bengali, Kannada, Telugu gstn.org/ocb/). All 12 volumes of newsletters
and Punjabi were conducted with published in financial year 2017-18 are
support of the respective State Tax published on the GSTN website. So far 9
Department officials. issues of the second volume of newsletters
for financial year 2018-19 are already
The recordings of webinars for taxpayers published on the GSTN website.
have been uploaded on GSTN YouTube
Channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/ These newsletters give information about the
G o o d s a n d S e r v i c e s Ta x N e t w o r k ) following:
and Digital India Learning Portal {{ Webinars conducted by GSTN during the
www.youtube.com/channel/ month
UCbzIbBmMvtvH7d6Zo_ZEHDA/
videos {{ Trainings of tax officials conducted during
the month
Webinars for Tax Officials were also
conducted and communication was {{ Awareness programs conducted for
sent through email to Tax Officials of stakeholders & trade bodies.
Model 2 States/UTs. Some of the topics
{{ New User Manuals, FAQs & CBTs
covered for the tax officials perspective
released during the month on the GST
are given below:
Portal for the stakeholders

67
 {{ Updates about the social media channels In addition to the MDPs and certification programs
of GSTN. for GSTN employees, brown bag sessions have
been institutionalized for knowledge sharing
{{ The new functionalities released on & upskilling. We also provide an opportunity
the GST portal from the taxpayer’s for outside presenters to be part of these
perspective sessions and share valuable knowledge with the
employees on wide ranging subjects.
6. Learning Initiatives for GSTN Brown bag sessions are developed to:
Employees: Brown Bag
Sessions {{ enhance employee learning about topics that
are ancillary to work but help in upskilling
A brown bag session or a brown bag meeting is
a term often used to describe informal meetings {{ provide an informal reason for employees
and interactive knowledge sessions that occur to gather to enhance teamwork & positive
around lunchtime in a reference to the brown work culture
paper sacks that employees might pack for their {{ raise employees’ level of engagement
lunch. The original concept of “brown bag” was and motivation at work by providing onsite
to inculcate a culture of sharing and collaboration education
through informal lunches. Currently, brown-
bag lunches is a concept rarely practiced as
Topics for brown bag sessions are therefore as
the traditional brown bag has been replaced by
far ranging as the creativity and imagination of
trendier options while E-learning solutions and
GSTN employees extends. Brown bag sessions
other medium of self paced learning have become
are presented by internal employees or by
the prevalent trend in learning and development.
external resources, as needed. So far we have
However, at GSTN, the conventional brown bag
been able to engage more than 500 man hours in
sessions have tremendously aided the building
learning about the following topics:
of the culture of learning.

Data Analytics
Using Outlook Effectively
Big Data
Operating System
Using Macbook Effectively
Updates about GST Portal
Using Webex/VC Effectively
ISO
My SQL 8.0
ITIL & ISO
Health Benefits of Wheatgrass
Tax Planning
Information Security
Basics of GST

68
 List of Recorded Webinars on GSTN YouTube Channel
(As on 7th March 2019)

No. Webinar Topic No. of Language in which webinar was conducted

Sessions

1 Application for withdrawal of summary 1 Hindi

assessment order

2 Composition levy scheme 2 Hindi

3 Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) 1 English

4 Filing of Appeal at GST portal 4 Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil

5 Filing of Form GSTR 8 using Offline tool for Tax 2 English, Hindi
Collectors (TCS)

6 Filing of Form GSTR-7 using Offline tool on GST 3 Hindi, English Tamil
Portal by Tax Deductors

7 Filing of GSTR 10 Final Return on GST portal 2 Hindi, English

8 Filing Reply to Demand Notice DRC-06 2 Hindi, English

9 Filing TRAN 2 in GST portal 4 Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil

10 Form GST TRAN 1 2 English

11 Form GSTR 1 4 English, Marathi

12 Form GSTR 1 and Offline Tool 10 English, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada,
Bengali

13 Form GSTR 2 and Offline Utility 4 English, Hindi, Tamil, Marathi

14 Form GSTR 3B 6 English, Marathi, Telgu, Tamil, Bengali, Hindi

15 Form GSTR 4 3 English, Tamil, Hindi

16 Grievance Redressal Portal and other Pre login 2 Hindi, English

features of GST website

17 Importing invoice details from EWay Bill portal 2 Hindi, English

18 Intimation of Voluntary payment (Form DRC-03) 4 Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil

19 New Features in Eway bill portal (Vol 1 to Vol 3) 13 Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali,
Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi

20 New functionalities on GST Portal (Vol 1 to Vol 3) 12 Hindi, English, Tamil, Marathi

21 Online Filing of Form GSTR-7 on GST Portal by 2 English, Hindi

Tax Deductors

22 Online Filing of Form GSTR-8 on GST Portal by 2 English, Hindi

Tax Collectors (TCS)

23 Payment process at GST portal 2 English

24 Provisional Assessment and Taxpayer Dashboard 2 Hindi, English

on GST Portal

25 Refund Functionalities at GST Portal 2 English, Hindi

26 Resolution of Issues in Refund of IGST on export 1 English

of goods

27 TDS Provisions , Action on TDS/ TCS credit 4 Hindi, English

details by Deductee at GST portal 

28 Transitional Provisions 2 English

29 UIN related matters with creation of Form 1 English

GSTR11 and Form GST RFD 10

69
SECTION VI:
Our Partners

70
G
oods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) contracted Infosys in November 2015 through a public
RFP evaluation process to implement the new tax reform in building, running the network and
system for the historic indirect tax reform.

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting operating out of 45
countries with an annual revenue of $11.31 Billion USD and an employee strength of 204,107. Infosys
has been a market leader for last three decades and with strategic initiatives of Agile Digital and Re-
skilling of existing workforce is “navigating to next” from innovation and continuity aspects.

GST System was built on Open Source platform using Agile based methodology meeting necessary
unique characteristics of the system. Infosys envisioned the concept of One Nation One Tax and
successfully implemented a robust and scalable GST system ensuring seamless movement for
the country into the new tax regime. Infosys implemented the green field transformation program
end-to-end on a turnkey basis – the scope of work included program management, infrastructure
procurement & set-up, participation in formulating business requirement & process, application
development, training and operations & maintenance.

Considering the scale and complexity dimensions, GST system is one of the world’s largest Open
Source Transformations and involved complex business transformation. Infosys has been a true
partner in the journey and demonstrated flexibility in delivering GST to the Nation, encapsulating
agility to deliver with a faster turnaround time in a challenging scenario with the laws and rules
evolving over a period of time and understanding them and finalising requirements and deploying
various functionalities and applications as per the business mandate. Infosys deployed its finest
engineers to the project, committed to ensuring that all issues are addressed with speed and agility.

71
 THE CHALLENGES WERE IMMENSE:

Multi-tier structure of 29 Intricate tax laws + 10 Laws, rules, forms critical

states + 7 Union Territories million taxpayers + 400 to formalizing GST evolving
+ 1 Central Government invoices/taxpayer/month |
+ Multiple manual 50% filing on last day
interventions = Extremely
Complex Ecosystem

Given highly volatile requirements and rapid go-to-market demands from the Government, the
GSTN team which initially started with Waterfall SDLC, transitioned to Agile methodology, to
execute the program.

APPROACH ADOPTED:

Agile – scrum of scrum Pilot sprints done for the Architects, Developers,
method for scaling initial period to arrive to Tester and Domain experts
development and Kanban optimum sprint duration involve in each Scrum team
for operation support and team size
Separate Focus on DevOps,
Automation

SUCCESS FACTORS:

Process Best Practices Collaborative Culture Integrated Agile-DevOps model

1. 28 scrum teams follow 1. ‘Thanking the people’ in 1.

Jira customization for
2 weeks’ sprint and retrospective meeting Scrum Team (Scrum
common sprint start and 2.
Sharing best practices Board) & Management
end date aligned to use among scrum masters (KANBAN Board) for
cases / functional teams effective tracking
3.
Dedicated HR to run
2.
Early involvement of incentive program, 2.
Fully automated CI-
BAs in Sprint cycle and programs, R&R CD pipelines for all the
inclusion of independent (identifying best scrum modules till production
Tester/s as part of the master, max. story points, and performance test
scrum team max. features delivery, environments
3. TV displays – health of most valuable player, etc.)
compliance – created
healthy competition
among scrum teams

72
 BUSINESS IMPACT:

Compliance Improvement: Ease of doing Business for Completeness and

56% increase in registered taxpayers Correctness – Delivered
taxpayer (65 Lac to 1.2 complete feature and
Businesses across the nation
Crores), 245 Million Return functionality of indirect
are able to file tax returns, get
filings till date with average income tax as required by the
refunds and reconcile their
compliance of 60% within Government of India within
transactions for validity and
notified end date and `78% stipulated timelines and
consistency electronically
over extended period continuous improvement
Integration with E-Way Bill for ease of doing business
improved productivity by
faster movement of Goods

Infosys has a special “Diversity and Inclusion” initiative within the

organization with a special focus on Women empowerment and
inclusivity programs in setting up a conducive ecosystem for women
to thrive across various stages of their career.
Infosys takes immense pride in demonstrating its commitment to
advance gender equality and empower the women workforce in the
program with more than 50% women workforce in the project
team and more than 40% in the project leadership team.

73
TINXSYS
Managed by Wipro
Tax Information Exchange System (TINXSYS) is a centralized exchange of all interstate dealers
spread across the various States and Union territories of India. TINXSYS helps the Commercial Tax
Departments of various States and Union Territories to effectively monitor the statutory forms issued
for interstate trade for goods under VAT.

TINXSYS can be used by any dealer to verify the counter party dealer in any other State. Apart from
dealer verification, Commercial Tax Department officials also use TINXSYS for verification of central
statutory Forms issued by other State Commercial Tax Departments and submitted to them by the
dealers in support of claim for concessions.

TINXSYS also provide MIS reports to the Commercial Tax Departments to monitor interstate trade
movements. TINXSYS is used as an effective centralized information system for verification and
monitoring of interstate trade.

Wipro plays a major role in managing and supporting TINXSYS project. Since February 2015,
TINXSYS application is managed and maintained by Wipro.

{{ Both Datacenter (DC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) Center of TINXSYS application are hosted in
Wipro premises for running on 24 X 7 basis.

{{ Wipro has deputed 1 Resident Engineer at each State/UTs’ Commercial Tax Department
headquarter for collecting and uploading the statutory forms (Form C, F, H1 and H2) in TINXSYS
database as per predefined template.

{{ For TINXSYS, Wipro also provides dedicated helpdesk to the users of ÇTD in all State & UTs
and Dealers.

Below is the TINXSYS utilization since 2015. The number of transactions has gone down after
introduction of GST as number of items under VAT has shrunk.

TINXSYS Usage Trend from Jan-2015 to Feb-2019

Year Dealer C Form E1 Form E2 Form F Form H Form
Count Issued Issued Issued Issued Issued

2015 15357376 30773258 220298 30621 2071764 561772

2016 16648040 31519168 297977 21867 3480541 708625

2017 6174164 27014586 251289 17932 5749544 985424

2018 247118 14217570 247118 10955 2453948 233477

2019 535918 489032 9674 1157 129295 146225

74
Wipro has made following enhancements in last cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics,
3 years: cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to
help our clients adapt to the digital world and make
{{ Development of Dealer Ledger report.
them successful. A company recognized globally
{{ Development of web service for TIN Search. for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong
commitment to sustainability and good corporate
{{ Development of C, F, H, E1 and E2 form citizenship, we have over 160,000 dedicated
webservice. employees serving clients across six continents.
{{ Enhanced the security like development of Together, we discover ideas and connect the dots
CAPTCHA on login and fixed the memory to build a better and a bold new future.
leakages issues, which was leading to
reboot of application server. Spirit of Wipro
{{ The extraction and upload process of the The Spirit of Wipro is the core of Wipro. These
Forms has been automated and is being are our Values. It is about who we are. It is
done without human intervention. our character. It is reflected consistently in all
our behavior. The Spirit is deeply rooted in
About Wipro the unchanging essence of Wipro. But it also
embraces what we must aspire to be. It is the
Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, indivisible synthesis of the four values. The Spirit
NSE: WIPRO) is a leading global information is a beacon. It is what gives us direction and a
technology, consulting and business process clear sense of purpose. It energizes us and is the
services company. We harness the power of touchstone for all that we do.

Be passionate about clients’ success

Treat each person with respect

Be global and responsible

Unyielding integrity in everything we do

We succeed when we make our clients about delivering on our commitments. It is about
successful. We collaborate to sharpen our honesty and fairness in action. It is about being
insights and amplify this success. We execute ethical beyond any doubt, in the toughest of
with excellence. Always. circumstances.

We treat every human being with respect. We Wipro is empowering its clients to lower the cost
nurture an open environment where people are of experimentation and failure, so they can pivot
encouraged to learn, share and grow. like a start-up and scale like an enterprise. So,
Wipro is helping clients not just with the adoption
We embrace diversity of thought, of cultures, and of technologies like cloud, Artificial Intelligence or
of people. blockchain, but also working with them to adopt
Integrity is our core and is the basis of everything. new ways of working, in the IT organization and
It is about following the law, but it’s more. It is beyond

75
The Goods and Services Tax was a huge, rather It is indeed a feeling of honor and pride to say that
360 degree change in the taxation regime Business community from all over India calls on
pertaining to Taxpayer inclusion, Transparency this Contact Center and gets their issue resolved,
and in avoidance of Cascading effect in the 70th moreover this helpdesk is the most responsive
year of Indian Independence. This being the helpdesk amongst the channels available to an
case, it was likely to disrupt the taxation policy, Indian Business Owner for aligning well to the
administration and collection at large. GSTN GST regime.
had to rise to the occasion and ensure a smooth
glide path of adoption from the Technological The helpdesk scope was to resolve issues
viewpoint. pertaining to the functionality of GST.GOV.IN,
the website ecosystem for GST Registrations,
The disrupted taxation regime was still devoid of Returns and Payments. GST law related queries
one component and that was a helpdesk which were kept out of scope as that is under the direct
can be approached by the larger Indian Business prerogative of CBEC.
pool to have any issue resolved by calling or an
Email. India’s largest platform and a flagship project of
Government of India supporting Millions of Tax
LOI was issued on 12th June and subsequently Payers across the country, was launched on 1st
contract was signed of and we went live in a July 2017. GSTN through a competitive and skill
record 13 days in A7 Building in Noida. based Bid, awarded contract to Tech Mahindra to
Support Voice calls and Email. Helpdesk Started
With TechM prowess in the BPO operational with 400 Tax Support executives, however, post
arena, we supported GSTN through thick and the launch of the channel, and responsiveness
thin. We have managed successfully a peak of helpdesk, Tax Payers have shown faith in
volume of ~ 60000 call and ~18000 Mails/Tickets helpdesk system and reached out in huge
per day. numbers to the GSTN Helpdesk with 5x queries
in contrast to our Anticipation. GSTN and TechM
All in All the GSTN process and the committed took coordinated and calculated measures to
teams handling the account holistically mirror the ensure a high level of taxpayer satisfaction and
RISE pillars and it is through their commitment commensurately manned the helpdesk to support
that TechM has cemented its position further in approximately 40k Tax Payers daily. TechM with
the service of Taxpayers of India. its RISE values and domain expertise ensured all
the taxpayers are catered with utmost care and
High level of Satisfaction.

76
Digital Culture
Deployment of KMS, CSAT and Delivery
CRM through integration with • L0 and L1 Support through
common GST portal Voice and Email Channels

Business
Transformation
• Deploying Customized Customer
Solutions to Efficiently Engagement
run Contact Centre Transforming Customer
Operations experience through self
• Value add on current HELP DESK service and learning
business modules to transformation
transform the business

Knowledge Enhancement
Service Excellence
Empowering taxpayers with the
• Quality Management Systems
information pertaining to GST
• Data Access Protection

The Partnership delivered a perpetual and high The Helpdesk Team kept on enriching their skills
End support to the Tax Payers and the results through learning transformation, that further
are visible. transformed Tax Payers knowledge. It can be
termed as a unique value addition to GSTN
Tax Payers feedback has been captured through System, because this Knowledge Transformation
an automated IVR Customer feedback system helped the Tax Payers to understand the system
throughout the engagement. The Scores better and was empowered to resolve their issues
bestowed by the Tax Payers Were Promising by themselves. The effect of the activity was well
indeed. In the year 2017 exemplifying their high noticed post 2018 June. Calls and Emails from
satisfaction, taxpayers have scored the helpdesk the customers reduced by more than 56% and
at 90% in CSAT. In 2018 the Tax Payers concaved 82% respectively.
the Scores further, made us Proud by Granting a
{{ Serving 12 million taxpayers spread across
Satisfaction Scores of 95%.
the country

Strict adherence to Standards and robust {{ 52% dropped in taxpayer queries

Automation conferred the Team to be focused by knowledge transformation and
high on Quality and Compliance of Services implementation of Grievance Redressal
and create new Benchmark. 2017 Quality and portal
Compliance Scores closed at 88% and in 2018
{{ Helpdesk is assisting PAN India taxpayers
it was at 93% against the Industry Standards of
through inbound voice support and
80% to 85%.
Grievance Redressal portal

77
Call Inflow Trend Ticket Inflow Trend

7.4 3.16
2.50 0.44
Calls (In Lacs) Tickets (In Lacs)

FY 2017-18 FY 2018-19 FY 2017-18 FY 2018-19

Quality: 93%
CSAT: 95%

Quality: 88%
CSAT: 90%

FOUNDATION GROWTH
FY (2017-18) FY (2018-19)

78
e-Way Bill System
e-Way Bill (EWB) mechanism is put in place to Services Tax i.e. One Nation… One Tax… One
ensure that goods are transported in accordance Market… One e-Way Bill…
with GST laws and tax is paid for the supply of
Earlier way bill system in VAT regime was based
goods. e-Way Bill is an electronic document
on the philosophy that taxpayer should use way
which gives details regarding the movement of
bill and department’s entire effort was geared
goods and needs to be carried by transporters
towards the crosschecking of the taxpayer
for any consignment exceeding Rs.50,000. The
accounts and the transaction in his books of
application, developed by National Informatics
accounts. This paradigm was reversed in e-Way
Centre (NIC), provides a self-service platform
Bill system. Here, the tax payer prior to dispatch
to tax payers and transporters to generate an
of goods via a transport vehicle, must inform
e-Way Bill for movement of goods from one place
each transaction’s details on the tax department
to another. e-Way Bill was made operational from
portal, obtain an acknowledgement number,
1st of April 2019 and it is being run and operated
and then use the same as a valid document
by NIC from NIC Data centers. On an average
accompanying the truck. This process ensures
20 lakh e-way bills are generated by taxpayer/
that the taxpayer accounts the transactions first
transporters every day in self-service mode.
and only then he can dispatch the goods. EWB
Through E-Way Bill system, Taxpayers, mechanism has thus facilitated in overcoming
Transporters and Tax officers accomplish all work the trade challenges that the taxpayers used to
within a unified system hence conforming to the face in VAT regime and resulted in paradigm shift
Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of Goods and in trade. Application Highlights

79
e-Way Bill system provides 24*7 online services users to create and maintain their own Masters
and is a user friendly system. With a personalized to avoid repetitive efforts on data entry. This
dashboard to view activities, it is interfaced with enables the process of generating e-way bill
GST Common Portal and CBDT PAN Systems for quickly and easily by avoiding chances of errors.
verification of data. It provides real time alerts & In addition to registered Taxpayers and enrolled
notifications to users regarding their operations Transporters, the system also permits Citizens
via Web & SMS. The portal facilitates registered and Transporters to generate EWBs by using
the option “E-Way Bill for Citizens” provided
in the portal. e-Way Bill system has an online
Major Achievements Grievance Redressal Mechanism wherein users
• Boost to GST Revenue Collections can log their grievances in case the vehicle is
• Abolishment of Check posts unnecessarily detained by the officers and
the same is communicated to the concerned
• Encouragement to self-reporting
department officers automatically on immediate
• Time saving for transportation of
basis to address the issue.
goods
• Ease of doing business The officer module helps in the verification
• Rise in new GST registrations of e-way bills and entry of inspection reports.
• Increase in tax compliance Number of analytical reports are provided to the
officers for investigation purposes.

80
e-Way Bill Statistics (as on 16.03.2019)

Road Ahead National Informatics Center

The following are some major enhancements NIC was established in 1976, and has rich
which are proposed to be incorporated in experience of providing ICT & e-Governance
the existing EWB system in future to further support for the last 4 decades and bridge the
strengthen the system. Digital divide. It has emerged as a promoter of
digital opportunities for sustainable development.
{{ RFID mechanism: One such measure is
To its credit, NIC spearheaded “Informatics-Led-
the RFID mechanism which is planned to
Development” by implementing ICT applications
be integrated with EWBs wherein RFID
in social & public administration and facilitated
tag will be attached to vehicles for tracking
electronic delivery of services to the Government
electronic movement of goods so that the
(G2G), Business (G2B), Citizen (G2C) and
random verifications of the e-way bills by
Government Employee (G2E). By establishing
the officers can be avoided. This will also
the ICT Network, “NICNET”, NIC has facilitated
help to analyze the data to detect the tax
the institutional linkages with all the Ministries /
evasions.
Departments of the Central Government, 36
{{ Risk based Analytical Reports: The State Governments/Union Territories, and
existing analytical and dashboard reports about 710+ District administrations of India.
will be further enhanced to add more value NIC’s has been instrumental in spearheading
for the officers. The risk based analysis will e-Government/e-Governance applications
be added to help the officers to pin point the in government ministries/departments at the
tax evasion and take appropriate action. Centre, States, Districts and Blocks, facilitating
improvement in government services, wider
{{ Integration with Vaahan (Vehicle) Data: transparency, promoting decentralized planning
Based on a suggestion received from an and management, resulting in better efficiency
inter-ministerial task force, the GST Council and accountability to the people of India.
has informed to integrate with the Vaahan
database to help in investigating fraudulent
cases.

81
NIC has aligned itself with mission and vision Digital India. A new state-of-the-art data centre
of Digital India Programme. NIC has developed at Bhubaneshwar has been set up, which is fully
generic, configurable eGovernance products/ operational and another at Bhopal is being set
applications as State-of-the-art architecture up. These are in addition to the existing data
using cutting edge technologies including mobile, centres at Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune. NIC has
cloud, data analytics, BI and advanced GIS. The the largest e-Mail service of the country with more
focus is to productize software applications with than 525 million e-Mails transacted per month. It
configuration flexibilities for making them readily has the largest Video Conferencing network in
available with minor customization. To facilitate the country facilitating around 28,000 multisite
these, Centre for Excellence for Data Analytics conferences with over 6,00,000 site hours of
(CEDA), Centre for Excellence for Artificial VC sessions conducted. Over the National
Intelligence (CoE-AI), Mobile Competency Knowledge Network (NKN), a total of 1,674 links
Centres, Centre for Excellence in Cyber Security to various institutions have been commissioned
have been set up. Some of the important projects and made operational. NKN has established its
like eWaybill under GST, SWaaS, DARPAN, international Point of Presence at Amsterdam,
eOffice, eHospital, eProcurement, eTransport Geneva, Singapore and Sri Lanka. NIC continues
(Vahan & Sarthi), eCourts, Service Plus, Soil to provide vital support to PRAGATI (Pro Active
Health Card, SBM-G, SBM-U, ePrisions, Governance and Timely Implementation of
eCourts, eVisa, eSameeksha, eTaal, Direct various government schemes) wherein Hon’ble
Benefit Transfer etc. have been rolled out across Prime Minister monitors implementation of critical
the country. NIC products and Services have projects of various ministries / Departments
been recognized internationally also with signing across the country.
of Agreements with Republic of Uzbekistan,
Morocco and Sri Lanka for cooperation in the NIC is providing Data Centers Services from
area of eGovernance. Many other countries have National Data Centres at Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune
also shown keen interest in taking NIC’s support and Bhubaneswar. The National Data Centre at
in IT & eGovernance. Bhubaneswar was inaugurated by Hon’ble ME&IT
in the month of May, 2018. Openstack based
NICNET, the nationwide Network has over cloud services have been started and hosting
70,000 nodes in Delhi Govt. buildings & over of state applications is now being taken up
1,00,000 nodes in State Secretariat Buildings. from this newly established NDC. National Data
Access to NICNET is also available through Wi- Centre at Delhi has start-of-the-art networking,
Fi in various Central Government Offices. There two petabyte enterprise class storage, backup &
are 3,653 e-Services from various ministries, load balancing ICT Infrastructure and number of
states/UTs and all Mission Mode Projects (MMP) projects of national importance are hosted here.
with over 8,600 crores eTransactions till date.
Citizens across India access NIC portals every At the State level, NIC is providing ICT and
day for information and services. The data eGovernance support to State Departments.
centres of NIC host more than 8000+ websites of Some of the important projects implemented
the Government in the secured environment. The are DARPAN, eWaybill, Mid-Day Meal, eHRMS
NIC National Cloud (Meghraj) is presently hosting (Manav Sampada), ePareeksha, Real Craft,
a number of critical applications on over 16,000 eVidhan, Land records and property registration,
virtual servers supporting 480+ eGovernance SBM-G, PMAY, XLN, treasuries, eHospital,
projects and 900+ User departments under eGranthalaya.

82
Statistics

83
84
 All India GSTR 3B Filing Status
(as on 20th March 2019)

Return period Taxpayers Eligible Return Filing Return Filing % Return Filing %
to File GSTR 3B (till 20.03.2019) (as on Due Date) (till 20.03.2019)
July-17 74,61,214 64,31,102 51.40% 86.19%
August-17 75,32,807 70,20,711 37.79% 93.20%
September-17 79,25,831 73,69,114 49.63% 92.98%
October-17 81,54,303 71,67,254 53.56% 87.90%
November-17 79,92,517 72,63,037 61.47% 90.87%
December-17 81,82,277 73,52,143 66.33% 89.85%
January-18 83,63,437 74,64,894 64.56% 89.26%
February-18 85,45,661 75,80,977 63.86% 88.71%
March-18 87,08,493 76,73,892 60.68% 88.12%
April-18 88,17,798 7,739,259 63.95% 87.77%
May-18 91,22,309 7,868,229 63.25% 86.25%
June-18 93,16,710 7,954,105 62.67% 85.37%
July-18 94,70,282 8,022,429 68.58% 84.71%
August-18 96,15,273 8,089,210 60.15% 84.13%
September-18 96,57,239 8,128,602 66.47% 84.17%
October-18 97,57,664 8,155,014 60.76% 83.58%
November-18 98,46,645 8,030,922 64.35% 81.56%
December-18 99,01,997 7,987,717 63.11% 80.67%
January-19 99,72,639 7,772,831 69.73% 77.94%
February-19 1,00,54,283 6,086,027 60.53% 60.53%

All India GSTR 4 Filing Status

(as on 20th March 2019)
Month Eligible Taxpayers Return Filing Return Filing % Return Filing %
to File GSTR 4 (till 20.03.2019) (Till Due Date) (till 20.03.2019)
July-Sept-17 11,41,565 9,93,734 52.79% 87.05%
Oct-Dec-17 17,24,344 14,93,380 39.33% 86.61%
Jan-March-18 19,31,061 15,45,206 45.59% 80.02%
Apr-June-18 17,66,630 15,15,928 53.04% 85.81%
July-Sept-18 17,74,379 14,65,156 47.86% 82.57%
Oct-Dec-18 17,57,919 13,90,322 58.96% 79.09%

85
 State-wise distribution of Taxpayers
(as on 20th March 2019)
State State Name Number of Taxpayers Total Normal Composition Others*
Code Migrated Registered number of Taxpayers Taxpayers
taxpayers From 1st Taxpayers
July 2017
1 2 3 4 5=3+4 Out of 5 Out of 5 Out of 5
35 A&N Islands 936 3,971 4,907 3,776 873 258
37 Andhra Pradesh 191,531 200,378 391,909 2,77,512 1,12,242 2,155
12 Arunachal Pradesh 3,143 10,913 14,056 10,624 2,476 956
18 Assam 85,855 118,950 204,805 1,56,409 45,878 2,518
10 Bihar 161,213 239,871 401,084 3,02,740 92,973 5,371
04 Chandigarh 16,906 13,507 30,413 27,480 2,082 851
22 Chhattisgarh 74,149 65,573 139,722 1,01,721 35,437 2,564
26 Dadra and Nagar Haveli 4,155 4,498 8,653 8,132 409 112
25 Daman and Diu 3,682 2,830 6,512 5,992 335 185
07 Delhi 381,561 367,742 749,303 7,26,590 18,591 4,122
30 Goa 21,157 17,552 38,709 33,113 4,916 680
24 Gujarat 474,182 509,066 983,248 8,60,198 1,12,472 10,578
06 Haryana 213,275 234,317 447,592 4,20,295 24,574 2,723
02 Himachal Pradesh 52,121 56,297 108,418 86,171 21,238 1,009
01 Jammu and Kashmir 46,300 52,788 99,088 88,301 9,479 1,308
20 Jharkhand 72,721 97,200 169,921 1,45,409 21,644 2,868
29 Karnataka 479,772 351,306 831,078 7,05,197 1,11,551 14,330
32 Kerala 219,444 124,721 344,165 2,89,859 48,692 5,614
31 Lakshadweep 11 270 281 206 30 45
23 Madhya Pradesh 239,729 174,333 414,062 3,45,085 65,388 3,589
27 Maharashtra 777,850 790,092 1,567,942 13,76,634 1,55,850 35,458
14 Manipur 2,972 10,148 13,120 10,887 1,757 476
17 Meghalaya 9,863 16,763 26,626 23,632 2,597 397
15 Mizoram 1,831 3,672 5,503 5,176 95 232
13 Nagaland 2,983 5,785 8,768 6,321 2,200 247
21 Odisha 119,996 131,646 251,642 2,17,324 31,773 2,545
34 Puducherry 13,060 10,598 23,658 20,745 2,561 352
03 Punjab 182,071 167,864 349,935 3,01,710 46,247 1,978
08 Rajasthan 409,519 317,788 727,307 5,49,644 1,61,287 16,376
11 Sikkim 2,668 5,211 7,879 6,733 839 307
33 Tamil Nadu 510,702 448,477 959,179 8,60,160 90,805 8,214
36 Telangana 174,644 209,883 384,527 3,17,320 57,822 9,385
16 Tripura 11,483 15,520 27,003 23,258 2,808 937
09 Uttar Pradesh 663,500 800,820 1,464,320 11,03,581 3,51,123 9,616
05 Uttarakhand 75,132 87,251 162,383 1,27,356 32,008 3,019
19 West Bengal 257,529 413,404 670,933 5,80,184 80,048 10,701
97 Other** - 67 67 66 0 1
99 OIDAR - 291 291 0 0 291
India 5,957,646 6,077,392 12,039,009 10,125,541 1,751,100 162,110
Note: Does not Include UIN Holders
* ISD, TDS, TCS, Casual Taxpayers etc.
** Territory (in the territorial waters of India)

86
 Share of Inter State & Intra State e-way Bills
(as on 22nd March 2019)
Inter state Intra State Total Inter Intra
State State
(%) (%)
ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR 2,770 2,382 5,152 54 46
ANDHRA PRADESH 4,626,411 12,259,604 16,886,015 27 73
ARUNACHAL PRADESH 18,297 25,375 43,672 42 58
ASSAM 1,652,394 3,348,122 5,000,516 33 67
BIHAR 679,379 2,525,439 3,204,818 21 79
CHANDIGARH 914,302 273,172 1,187,474 77 23
CHHATTISGARH 2,063,461 1,995,855 4,059,316 51 49
DADRA AND NAGAR HAVELI 2,922,369 495,116 3,417,485 86 14
DAMAN AND DIU 2,128,085 302,855 2,430,940 88 12
DELHI 18,604,634 7,246,943 25,851,577 72 28
GOA 724,744 619,505 1,344,249 54 46
GUJARAT 41,685,044 23,788,920 65,473,964 64 36
HARYANA 22,669,264 26,149,923 48,819,187 46 54
HIMACHAL PRADESH 3,080,231 2,215,864 5,296,095 58 42
JAMMU AND KASHMIR 467,521 1,226,491 1,694,012 28 72
JHARKHAND 2,350,068 4,314,749 6,664,817 35 65
KARNATAKA 15,276,640 32,139,800 47,416,440 32 68
KERALA 3,166,669 10,477,573 13,644,242 23 77
LAKSHADWEEP 34 - 34 100 0
MADHYA PRADESH 4,441,501 3,150,232 7,591,733 59 41
MAHARASHTRA 35,305,729 45,644,650 80,950,379 44 56
MANIPUR 5,230 25,453 30,683 17 83
MEGHALAYA 334,805 96,211 431,016 78 22
MIZORAM 7,801 6,170 13,971 56 44
NAGALAND 36,072 6,667 42,739 84 16
ODISHA 2,219,993 5,754,936 7,974,929 28 72
PUDUCHERRY 1,214,157 300,506 1,514,663 80 20
PUNJAB 9,305,796 12,451,217 21,757,013 43 57
RAJASTHAN 14,137,002 13,479,566 27,616,568 51 49
SIKKIM 84,825 30,270 115,095 74 26
TAMIL NADU 19,654,494 28,842,242 48,496,736 41 59
TELANGANA 5,872,193 10,793,459 16,665,652 35 65
TRIPURA 23,603 143,072 166,675 14 86
UTTAR PRADESH 14,363,201 31,686,511 46,049,712 31 69
UTTARAKHAND 3,890,921 5,792,260 9,683,181 40 60
WEST BENGAL 7,631,221 11,087,863 18,719,084 41 59
Total 241,562,008 298,699,214 540,261,222 45 55

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 All India e-way Bill Generation Month Wise
(as on 22nd March 2019)

Months Inter state Intra State Total

April 2018 20,558,339 7,437,665 27,996,004

May 2018 21,130,776 16,100,890 37,231,666

June 2018 19,491,208 27,273,991 46,765,199

July 2018 17,989,426 26,221,010 44,210,436

August 2018 21,168,113 27,783,011 48,951,124

September 2018 21,039,539 27,074,491 48,114,030

October 2018 22,856,671 30,651,459 53,508,130

November 2018 18,316,758 26,745,667 45,062,425

December 2018 21,054,452 28,924,054 49,978,506

January 2019 21,452,244 29,565,228 51,017,472

February 2019 20,978,733 29,057,120 50,035,853

till 22 March 2019 15,525,749 21,864,628 37,390,377

241,562,008 298,699,214 540,261,222

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AWARDEES OF 2018

90
Digital India Awards 2018
Awards of excellence in digital governance initiatives
Exemplary Online Services

NASSCOM
Enterprise: Best use of Technology
Customer Service Excellence Award 2018

Express Computer + MESSE MUCHEN

Digital Leader Award for Excellence
Enterprise Application 2018

World HRD Congress

North India Best Employer Award
2018

Amity Leadership Award

Business Excellence By Leveraging IT in the
field of Public Administration
Confluence 2019

IFSEC
Excellence in Cyber Security
2019

91
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Glossary
API – Application Programming GSTN – Goods and Services Tax
Interface Network

B2B – Business to Business IA – Impact Assessment

B2C – Business to Consumer ISO – International Organization for

Standardization
BI – Business Intelligence
ITIL – Information Technology
BO – Back Office
Infrastructure Library
BRD – Business Requirement
IVRS – Interactive Voice Response System
Document
LMS – Learning Management System
CAG – Comptroller and Auditor General
of India NIC – National Informatics Centre

CBIC – Central Board of Indirect Taxes NIELIT – National Institute of Electronics &
& Customs Information Technology

CBT – Computer Based Tutorial NRTP – Non Resident Taxpayers

CPIO – Central Public Information O&M – Operations & Maintenance

Officer
OCB – Outreach and Capability Building
CSAT – Customer Satisfaction
OIDAR – Online Information Database
CSC – Common Service Centers Access & Retrieval Services

DDO – Drawing & Disbursing Officer RFP – Request for Proposal

DSC – Digital Signature Certificate RTI – Right to Information

FA – Fraud Analytics SFTP – Secure File Transfer Protocol

FAA – First Appellate Authority SRS – System/Software Requirement

Specifications
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
TCS – Tax Collection at Source
FO – Front Office
TDD – Technical Design Document
G2B – Government to Business
TDS – Tax Deduction at Source
GRP – Grievance Redressal Portal
UI – User Interface
GST – Goods and Services Tax
VC – Video Conferencing
GST – GST Suvidha Provider

94
 EDITORIAL BOARD

[KEY CONTRIBUTORS]
Prakash Kumar – CEO GSTN

Kajal Singh – EVP Services

Abhishek Gupta – EVP Support

Team Members:

Nitin Mishra

Nirmal Kumar

Pankaj Dikshit

Karuna Chandila

Sarthak Saxena

Anand Pande

Harsh Agarwal

Vashishtha Chaudhary

Rajeev Agarwal

Pankaj Arora

Satheshwaran

Sandeep Pandey

Neera Tamta

Mohammad Shahdaab

Shashank Shekhar

Krishna Prasad M

95
Notes

96