In a significant shift in how future policies in some key government departments such as the direct and indirect taxes administration are to be framed, the revenue department in the finance ministry has set up an endowment chair at the National Law School of University (NLSIU) in Bengaluru. Established with an endowment fund of Rs 6 crore, it will carry out research on international best practices and how they can be adopted in the Indian context.

The chair will grant research work every year on comparative studies of international best practices in taxation, dispute resolution mechanism, transfer pricing and ecommerce among others, and their relevance in the Indian context.These studies will be adopted in pol icy framing by the departments concerned and for the purpose of training officers. So far, the two departments of direct taxes and the indirect taxes use their in-house capabilities in framing polices and amendments in taxation laws.

The National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics (NACIN), part of the revenue department under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), formerly the Central Board of Excise and Customs, has signed an agreement with NLSIU for instituting the Endowment Chair for research work.

For capacity-building of its IRS officers, the NACIN has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Institute of Management in Bengaluru for training its officials on financial intelligence and investigation. So far, 90 officers of the CBIC have been trained at IIM, according to CBIC.

Researchers and students of the law university will be awarded work to carry out studies specific to the needs of the indirect tax department. The NACIN, which decides the research topics, is primarily responsible for training and capacitybuilding of directly recruited Group A officers from the Indian Revenue Services (Customs and In direct taxes). The university has also been tasked to design a law module which will be used for the training of newly-inducted IRS officers.

Starting this year, the CBIC has also been sending its officers to Science Po in Paris, the World Customs Organisation in Brussels and the Rotterdam Port in Netherlands to expose them to international best practices in customs and indirect tax administration. The Rotterdam port is one of the largest ports in Europe and until 2004 it was also the world's busiest port.

In the last few years, India has augmented its cargo-handling capacity at many of its existing ports and developed several new ports with private participation. The focus of the government is to develop a system of seamless flow of cargo travelling through seas and cut down on the delivery time