Till few years back, the grievance redressal mechanism of the Income Tax Department was very cumbersome. The process to file a complaint used to move from helpline centers to websites to file online and offline complaints. This system was not only slow and time consuming, but also the time taken for settlement to actually happen be very long, resulting in dissatisfaction among tax payers.
However, in 2016 the Income Tax Department put an end to this grueling process. They set up a central paperless process to address all the income tax grievances of the tax payers at a single place. This system is called E-Nivaran.
What is E-Nivaran?
The E-Nivaran system or the Unified Grievance Management System is set up by the department where an assessment officer is responsible to solve all problems in a paperless environment. The system has been carefully designed and the main aim of the IT department is to completely change the existing system, making it easier and more convenient for the tax payers.
Nivaran means redressal in Hindi. Using the system of E-Nivaran, taxpayers can file complaints to NSDL, assessment officer, CPC-ITR, UTISL, CPC-TDS, E-filing team and SBI refund banker. The system was launched on 17th June, 2016 to receive all grievances from different channels under a single window. Tax payers and staff can use E-Nivaran to file, view and resolve disputes and grievances through the website.
The E-Nivaran System
In order to ensure faster and easier resolution of tax related complaints, the E-Nivaran system has been set up based on the best technology. The system merges all online and offline complaints into one main complaint resolution system. Online complaints are the ones which are registered through the website of the Income Tax department whereas offline complaints are the ones for which the tax payers physically go to the income tax department and register complaints. The system has been set up so that each and every complaint is directed to the concerned department and also given the facility to track the complaint to the tax payer. This ensures that the problem reaches the right department and facilitates timely resolution.
Before the E-Nivaran system was launched, a tax payer could file a complaint in the following ways:
- Ayakar Sampark Kendra: At the ASK centers, offline complaints were received and were then captured by the Income Tax Business Application.
- CPC ITR: The Central Processing Center was responsible for accepting income tax returns, problems related to it and processing of the ITRs.
- E-Filing Portal: Any grievances related to registration, login, passwords and verification of returns could be filed on the website.
- CPC TDS: This department handled all grievances related to TDS i.e. tax deducted at source
- NSDL and UTIISL handled all problems related to PAN number.
All these modules got integrated after the E-Nivaran system was launched. The staff of the Income Tax Department can now use this system to search, record, transfer, view, resolve complaints and to seek information from the tax payer. All problems of the tax payers can also be solved using this system.
An Efficient System
E-Nivaran or the Unified Grievance Management System is the new facility by the Income Tax Department. The DAPRG or the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances submitted a report on the management of tax grievance which showed that only 1 out of 10 complaints were resolved within 2 months. To make the system more efficient, E-Nivaran was introduced. Few essential points about the new system are:
- It is a dedicated and separate window for grievance redressal in the Income Tax Business Application
- This system has been designed so that it can record the source of the grievance and continues to track till it is solved completely which ensures timely redressal
- The website makes sure that any grievance related to any domain or section of the Income Tax Department is sent quickly to the designated department
- The Central Board of Direct Taxes has allotted a fixed quota of grievances to the top officers in order to ensure proper monitoring and tracking from their source to final settlement