TCS developed PAN system for I-T in 1977

New Delhi, Dec 10: India missed a golden opportunity to implement a fully computerised tax administration system way back in the late ’70s as the then finance minister Charan Singh had rejected a proposal submitted by software giant Tata Consultancy Services.

          It is claimed in a book “The Tata Group: From Torchbearers to Trailblazers” by Management strategist-researcher Shashank Shah  to coincide with the completion of 150 years of The Tata Group and the death anniversary of JRD Tata on November 29.

          According to the author, after nationalisation of banks by the Indira Gandhi government in 1969, there was declining business with banks as the Centre did not want computers in India.

          “It believed that computerisation would lead to mass unemployment. It is contextual to mention a fact that few know,” he claims.

          According to him, it was TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) that had developed the now ubiquitous permanent account number (PAN) system for the income tax department in 1977.

          “Impressed by the output, the company was given an assignment to computerise the total processing of income tax. However, Charan Singh, then finance minister, decreed that there would be no computerisation in the finance ministry as it could create unemployment!” he writes in the book, published by Penguin Random House India.

          “If implemented then, India would have been far ahead of several countries through a fully computerised tax administration system,” Shah claims.

          It is mandatory to quote PAN on return of income, all correspondence with any income tax authority.

          From January 1, 2005, it has become mandatory to quote PAN on challans for any payments due to the I-T Department.

          The book is replete with other little-known facts about The Tata Group.

          Among these is about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi helping in maintaining industrial harmony at Tata Steel plants in the 1920s.