Ministry of Finance has constituted the Technical Advisory Group for Unique Projects (TAGUP). This Committee has been constituted in pursuance of the Finance Minister’s Budget Speech 2010-11 wherein he proposed to set up a Technology Advisory Group for Unique Projects under the Chairmanship of Shri Nandan Nilekani for an effective tax administration and financial governance system through creation of IT projects which are reliable, secure and efficient.

There are five projects of the Government, in the recent years, which have come to involve complex system development as listed below-

·      The Tax Information Network (TIN)

·      The New Pension Scheme (NPS)

·      The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA)

·      The Expenditure Information Network (EIN)

·      The Goods and Services Tax (GST)

Technical Advisory Group for Unique Projects has been constituted with the following Members-

1.      Shri Nandan Nilekani-                                                  (Chairperson)

2.      Shri C.B. Bhave, Chairman SEBI

3.      Shri R. Chandrasekhar, Secretary, Department of IT

4.      Shri Dhirendra Swarup, Former Chairman PFRDA

5.      Shri S.S. Khan, Former Member, CBDT

6.      Shri P.R.V Ramanan, Former Member, CBEC

7.      Dr. Nachiket Mor, President, ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth

TAGUP will address and make recommendations on the following issues-

         i.            Human resource including modification in government rules, procedures etc;

       ii.            Appropriate placement of tasks and allocation of responsibilities within Government;

      iii.            Contracting, commercial terms and charges including procedures etc for competitive bidding, pricing models and suggestions on user charges;

     iv.            Road map from start up to going concern for each of these projects, which would also focus on legal/regulatory change, if any;

       v.            Technology architecture and ways for co-ordination between Centre, States and Local Governments;

     vi.             Possibility of introducing Open Protocols and utilization of open source components of other e-government projects;

    vii.            Security challenges of malicious attacks on the system;

  viii.            Accountability and self-corrective mechanisms; and

     ix.            Protection of individual’s right to privacy with focus on safeguards in the IT systems to protect legal and constitutional rights etc.

      The TAGUP has been given a timeframe of six months from the date of its constitution to make their recommendations.

      The details are available at Finance Ministry’s website finmin.nic.in.  

DSM/BY/GN-185/2010