Various sources have suggested that four Indian service providers – Infosys, Wipro, TCS and Tech Mahindra – as well as Microsoft, have all entered bids for the project to provide India with a new country-wide goods and services tax (GST) network.

The Indian government plans to implement a single rate GST to subsume central excise, service tax and other local levies across the nation. The programme was set in motion by an RFP on 21 April, with a closing date for bidding set for 6 July. The government wants the project to be completed and ready to go from 1 April 2016.

“We have received five bids for building the GSTN system. We will finalise [the decision] by the end of the month,” said GST Network chairman Navin Kumar. "For registration the target is to get it ready by January 31 so that there is two months’ time for testing. And payment and returns will follow months later, because the first return will be filed only in May.”

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