LAHORE - EPay Punjab, the first-ever government payment aggregator for citizen facilitation and ease of business, has collected over Rs500 million revenue from multiple levies in just 100 days. This was informed in a progress review meeting presided by Chairman Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Azfar Manzoor on Wednesday. PITB launched the Application with the collaboration of Finance Department on October 4 last year for providing general public a stress-free and efficient method of paying all taxes and payments using ICT tools without going through the existing cumbersome process.
The meeting was informed that multiple new payment channels like Debit/Credit Card, Mobile Wallets, TELCO Agent Networks and Direct Debit from Account were being added to further increase the payment options for the citizens and businesses. Additionally, it is also planned to include Government to Public (G2P) and Government to Business (G2B) payment models in future to broaden the horizon of the program and following tax/non-tax receipts like online admission for colleges/schools fee, driving license fee, e-Challan, character certificate, domicile, fitness certificate (commercial vehicles) and agri income tax.
The ePay Punjab App lets the citizens generate a seventeen (17) digit unique PSID number that is accepted by all banks in Pakistan. The banking channels which the citizens can utilize for tax payments are internet/mobile banking, ATM and Over the Counter (OTC)/Branch Visits. At the back end ePay Punjab is integrated with State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and 1-link for interconnectivity across entire banking network in Pakistan. The App is the first-ever government payment aggregator in Punjab for the public to the government (P2G) and business to government (B2G) payments.
In the first phase, 13 taxes/levies and 5 departments are made a part of the app and portal. Excise & Taxation, Board of Revenue (BOR), Punjab Land Records Authority (PLRA), Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), Industries, Transport are the departments liaised with the app whereas citizens can pay token tax, vehicle registration fee, vehicle transfer fee, property tax, professional tax, cotton fee, e-Stamping, mutation fee, fard fee, sales tax on services, Punjab Infrastructural Development, Cess, business registration fee and route permit.
