The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in major setbacks in several quarters of the country - the lockdown and economic slump have affected various businesses. However, Vishakhapatnam Customs & Central Tax Zone has continued on its way to the progress; it collected Rs 64,827.42 crores revenue in 202-21, an increase of 29.52%. This growth has been possible with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies. 

Naresh Penumaka, Principal Chief Commissioner of Customs and Central Tax, Vishakhapatnam Zone (Andhra Pradesh) said, "The buoyancy in revenue collections was mainly on the account of Central Excise duties which stood at Rs 21,619.24 crores in 2020-21 an increase of over 19.58% than the previous year." He mentioned that customs collection increased by 13.33% and stood at Rs 28.209.67 crores in the same time period, while GST had a marginal decrease of 2.08% and slumped to Rs 14,998.51 crores. 

The Zone also cleared 94% of GST refund claims; to provide liquidity the zone organised special refund drives for the taxpayers and exporters. 

The Vizag zone found that they had detected Rs 1929.11 crores with the help of data analysed by AI and blockchain technology. The GSTN Directorate of Systems has developed specialised tools that helped the Director-General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGRAM) to crunch the data and use it to affect the recoveries. 

The Zone is using technologies in multiple other ways - it's monitoring the e-invoice data and matching it with the GST returns filed to see if there are any discrepancies. Through this approach, the Zone detected and registered 127 cases involving Rs 213.34 crores.