Easy payment app to help improve revenue collection

LAHORE:The Punjab government is going to launch ePay Punjab, a mobile application, on Friday (today) for all the Business to Government (B2G) and Public to Government (P2G) payments to facilitate the public and improve the government revenue collection through easy payment collection.

The application is jointly developed by the Punjab Finance Department and the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB). This was disclosed by the Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Jawan Bakhat Hashim while chairing a meeting on Thursday at finance department regarding ePay launching ceremony. The programme will allow the citizens of Punjab to pay their taxes using three different electronic payment channels namely Internet/Mobile Banking, ATM and through Over the Counter (OTC) banking transaction.

The minister said that the mobile application will helpful in complete departure from the erstwhile and decades old payment process which involved physical visits to the collection offices around the province for tax payments. Those visits required customers to stand in long queues and wait many hours to pay their tax dues to the government. The collection offices were invariably marked by the presence of informal touts, who though illegal, helped the clients go through complicated and complex procedures in relatively shorter duration for a certain sum of money. This practices that encouraged bribery and corruption is now being challenged by application which will allow the customer to pay his dues from even the comfort of his home, he observed.

In its first phase 12 different taxes of the Excise, Board of Revenue (BOR), PRA, Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA), and Industry department could be paid by the application. These taxes are token tax, Motor Vehicle Registration, Transfer of Motor Vehicle, Property Tax, Professional Tax, Cotton fee, e-Stamping, Mutation fee, Fard fee, Sales Tax on Services, Punjab Infrastructural Development Cess and Business Registration fee.

The application will allow the citizens of Punjab to generate a seventeen (17) digit unique PSID number that can be used to pay the necessary taxes thorough Internet/Mobile Banking, ATM or visit to any bank.

The solution will be an integrated and centralized system backed by government of Punjab web/mobile applications that will include all the scheduled banks, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and 1-link for interconnectivity. In future the public will be able to make multiple other payment channels including Debit, Credit card, Mobile wallets, TELCOs Agent Networks and Direct Debit from Account to further increase the payment option available to the customer. Additionally, it is also planned to include Government 2 Public (G2P) and Government2Buisness (G2B) payment models in future to broaden the horizon of the program and following Tax/Non-Tax receipts including online admission for colleges/schools fee, Driving License Fee, E-Challan, Character Certificate, Domicile, Route Permit, Fitness Certificate (Commercial Vehicles) and Agri Income Tax.