FBR aims to generate billions in tax revenue with VAS installation

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) aims to generate billions in tax revenue with the installation of video-analytics solution (VAS), a monitoring system in sugar mills of the country.

"(It) is expected to generate revenue growth of approximately Rs 5 billion to Rs 6 billion," the FBR spokesman Syed Nadeem Hussain Rizvi told Arab News.

The system is introduced under an agreement signed by the FBR and Pakistan Sugar Mills Association in October last year.

The spokesperson informed that the system is being implemented on a fast track basis.

Earlier, FBR issued evaluation criteria for selection of one vendor to install the video-analytics solution across all manufacturers of sugar in Pakistan.

According to the FBR’s document on evaluation criteria issued on, the FBR sought invitation for bids (IFB) for video-analytics surveillance of sugar production lines under competitive bidding between pre-qualified suppliers.

The FBR documents stated that the evaluation process is clearly focused on the proposed solution as a whole and how its components interact to provide the business process outcomes described in the IFB document.

The scoring of presented technical proposals from the pre-qualified vendors shall be executed by the FBR through the review, the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of technical proposals, in accordance with technical requirements presented in instruction to bidders.

The FBR document said that in order to properly monitor the production and sale of sugar and the attendant sales tax and income tax thereon, the FBR issued SRO 889(I)/2020, dated 21.09.2020 warranting all sugar mills to install video analytical surveillance (VAS) system expecting that the process would be completed before official onset of the crushing season.

The FBR ran a rigorous process of procurement as enshrined under the VAS Rules, 2020, and pre-qualified/approved seven vendors for supply and installation of the system on sugar factories.

The VAS System, however, has so far been installed only by a few sugar mills and those too are sub-optimal solutions.