With a population in excess of 14 million, the vibrant city of Mumbai is India’s financial capital. The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) is responsible for governing this vast urban area. It is one of the largest local governments in Asia.
MCGM has implemented a range of e-governance initiatives aimed at improving efficiency, transparency and service to its citizens. Its most recent initiative has been an e-Octroi portal. Octroi is an entry tax that is levied when goods enter the city limits for use, sale or consumption. MCGM’s Octroi portal www.mcgmoctroi.com aims to help ease the process of assessment and payment of Octroi tax for its citizens. Citizens can go to this portal, complete Octroi payment formalities and assess the amount of Octroi due. MCGM needed a solution that also allowed citizens to make the payments online to further ease and integrate the process. The goods are allowed to enter the city only once payment has been made. Therefore MCGM decided to contact various banks for an e-payment solution, to be integrated with the e-Octroi portal and at the same time offer maximum convenience to the payer in terms of channels and coverage of banks from where payment could be initiated.
Among the various banks, Citi took the initiative to provide a NetBanking Payment Gateway service and an Electronic Funds Transfer service – E-collect. The Netbanking service allowed citizens to hold an account with any of over 40 partner banks to make payments online. MCGM’s Octroi portal was integrated with the Payment Gateway. Citizens and corporates could view the Octroi details and were then redirected to their bank’s website, which then updated the MCGM Octroi portal. E-collect, the electronic funds transfer option, further increased the options available to citizens to pay from any account type, up to any amount without limitation, and from over 75,000+ bank branches across 100+ banks across the country. This channel was also more suitable for corporates that were paying Octroi as it helped them initiate payments based on their board-approved authority levels and could be initiated directly from their ERP. Once the corporate fills out the Octroi details, and assesses the tax payable, they are provided customized bank details in the form of an e-challan. They can then initiate an electronic funds transfer from their own bank to the bank details provided.
The solution is also very cost effective for the payer given that the cost of electronic payments is typically lower than that of demand drafts. The solution provided an electronic “pushbased” payment channel with MIS customized to MCGM needs to facilitate reconciliation.
Citi’s solution has enabled MCGM to offer an integrated online Octroi platform including payment. This has enabled migration from paper to a paperless platform and has increased transparency.
This has also reduced cash handling and the associated risks. Octroi payers now have the flexibility to pay through their own bank in a convenient mode at an economical cost. The solution facilitates not only MCGM’s collections but also benefits many of our large corporate clients by simplifying their Octroi payment process.