I-T help centre for Pranab’s constituency

NEW DELHI: Jangipur in West Bengal is an unlikely place to set up a call centre. The incometax department has, however, identified finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s constituency along with the National Capital Region, Jammu, Shillong and Kochi for setting up Aayakar Sampark Kendras to help answer your queries related to PAN card, grievances and filing of tax returns.

The plan is to connect taxpayers with these centres which will have a cumulative seating capacity of 80 persons, with 40 located in the call centre in the NCR, which comprises Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad. The other centres-—Jammu, Jangipur, Kochi and Shillong—will have 10 seats each to begin with. The tax department is trying to rope in BPO or call centre operators to set up these inter-connected facilities where capacities can be scaled up. In addition, these operators will have to hire, train and manage tax relationship agents, who will answer queries of taxpayers.
As part of its plan to offer improved services to taxpayers, the government had already set up an Aayakar Sampark Kendra in Gurgaon (0124-24380000 ) a few years ago and now the capacity is being expanded by adding more centres.

The call centres would be in addition to the Aayakar Seva Kendra ( ASK), which is the single-window front office for filing all applications for services and redressal of grievances, including paper returns. Though this service had initially been started in Pune, Kochi and Chandigarh, the plan is to operationalise the front office at all I-T offices by 2015.

The government has repeatedly announced its intent to offer better services to honest taxpayers to facilitate payment of taxes and filing of returns . A few years ago, the tax return preparers scheme was started under which on payment , a trained individual helped people file returns. Alternatively , people can call up the Aayakar Sampark Kendra.