The Departments public outreach on the Taxpayers Services wins laurels! The Taxpayers’ Lounge set up by the Directorate of Income Tax (PRPP&OL) was awarded ‘Silver’ medal for excellence in display in the category of Ministries and Departments in the 34th India International Trade Fair, 2014 in the award ceremony held on 27th November 2014. The award was presented by Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State (I/C) for Culture & Tourism and Min. of State for Civil Aviation at an impressive ceremony in the presence of representatives of various foreign participants, States, PSUs, Ministries & Business organisations.
The Taxpayers’ Lounge is a major step by the Department to generate awareness in the public about the various taxpayer-friendly initiatives taken by the Department. Through the Taxpayers’ Lounge, various taxpayer services like e-filing of returns, viewing of tax credit through 26AS, applications for PAN and services of Tax Return Preparers were showcased to the public.
Activities such as Nukkad Natak, Magic Show, Drawing Competition and Quiz Contest to engage with school children and youth were also organized in the Lounge to generate interest and awareness about taxation in a fun manner as they are potential taxpayers of the future.
A new initiative during IITF, 2014 was the focus of the Department on outdoor branding at the fair venue in the form of wall branding, banners on electric poles and publicity through LED walls set up by ITPO at various prominent locations within the Pragati Maidan which generated independent publicity for the Department but also motivated the general public to visit the Taxpayers’ Lounge. Additional publicity in the form of a Splash Screen on mobile App of IITF, 2014 was introduced for the first time alongwith a web banner ad on the Home page of IITF, 2014 which resulted in effective advertisement and publicity for the Department. As per the statistics, the number of downloads of Mobile App is 11,608 and the number of hits recorded for the IITF website exceeded one crore. The Department also invited its own ace caricature artist Shri B. Sajiv, ACIT, Coimbatore, who did 100 to 150 caricatures of the taxpayers everyday with a publicity message on every caricature. During the entire period of the trade fair approximately one lakh persons visited the Pavilion.
The Lounge was also given wide coverage by the print and electronic media.
Congratulations. So many things are happening for the first time in India. We are on move and progressing. India is awake. Please keep it Vande Matram