Open-Secrets disclosed by TIOL

Dear Comrades,

There were different news & views on different Blogs of Representatives of departmental officers Associations. Today, Taxindiaonline has published some open secrets of file of Cadre restructuring under CBEC. The same is published below to know the factual position.

Please go through the article to know the reality vis-a-vis various news/views published on the said blogs.

With regards,

BL Meena

PRESIDENT

CBEC finally catches up with Outgoing FM !

.......“Whatever may be the truth, the outgoing FM should not clear any transfer order of either of the Boards as it is bound to result in mud-slinging and avoidable image-tarnishing allegations. Even the Revenue Boards' Chairpersons should show greater maturity and political correctness in their decisions during the fag-end of the outgoing government. Although there is bound to be some orders which would trigger some sort of brawls, what merits appreciation for the Mr PC are two of his decisions. One is the pending promotion file of Principal Commissioners of the CBDT as per the Cadre Review. It has been approved and pushed up for the ACC approval which would come only after the New Prime Minister takes charge of the political steering wheel of the Nation. And the second decision is that of clearance of the CBEC 'Cadre Review'. Although the Chairperson's message to the IC&CE family created confusion in many minds by stating that the FM has approved the implementation of the Cadre Review on Saturday but it later transpired that the FM has approved only the geographical plans for creation of New Commissionerates. Since the Cadre Review had already been cleared by the Union Cabinet in December, there was no choice for any other functionary in the Government to say NO to it. But the delay must be attributed to the CBEC's own misdoing. It took three months to put fleshes into the skeletons approved by the Cabinet. Then what came to be noticed by the outgoing Revenue Secretary, Mr Sumit Boase, was glaring deviation from what the Cabinet had approved. The CBEC had reduced the number of Central Excise Commissionerates and increased the number of Audit Commissionerates - substantially different from what the approved Cabinet Note was. This obviously and logically led to raising of objections. Then commenced the exercise of eliminating the degree of deviations and when it came close to what the Cabinet had approved, it was put up before the outgoing FM who approved the same with minor changes.

Let's now visit the details of what has been approved. As per the amended version of details of creation of New Commissionerates, the three factors which have been taken into consideration are the workload of the existing commissionerates, the quantum of revenue collected and the number of assessees. Yet another factor which has also been accommodated is the regional aspirations of the political class. As per the approved plans, the CBEC will have as many as 119 Central Excise Commissionerates; 22 Service Tax Commissionerates, 60 Customs Commissionerates and 45 Audit Commissionerates. Since Mumbai has the largest number of service tax assessees it has been given as many as FIVE SERVICE TAX Commissionerates; followed by FOUR for Delhi; THREE for Chennai; TWO for Bangalore and ONE each for Hyderabad and Pune.

Noida which has emerged as a key industrial hub in the NCR, is going to be split into many Commissionerates - ONE Service Tax Commissionerate and an independent Customs Commissionerate. To accommodate regional aspirations, Uttaranchal has got Dehradun Commissionerate. Similarly, Telengana will have one Central Excise Commissionerate. In Seemandhara, Kakinada and Vijayawada will have independent Customs Commissionerates. In Punjab, Ludhiana will be a new Customs Commissionerate. The Tughlakabad ICD is going to be split into two independent Customs Commissionerate. To keep Haryana happy, Sonipat will be a full-fledged Central Excise Commissionerate. Goa will have two independent Customs and Central Excise Commissionerates. For Gujarat, Mundra Port will be a full-fledged Customs Commissionerate. Vadodara and Ahmedabad will get two Audit Commissionerates. In the East, Ranchi will be split into two Commissionerates and a new Commissionerate will be created in Dhanbad.

As per sources in the CBEC, Madhya Pradesh will get two new Central Excise Commissionerates in Jabalpur and Bilaspur. Kolkata will get one more service tax commissionerate along with an Audit Commissionerate. Bangalore Customs is going to be split into two separate commissionerates and will also have an Audit Commissionerate. India's busiest port Nhava Sheva is going to have more Customs Commissionerates. Similarly, Chennai will have more Customs Commissionerates. For Guwahati which never had its own sanctioned staff, it will be getting hundreds of sanctioned posts and will also have an audit commissionerate. In total, there will be as many as 60 appellate commissioners and the rest out of 440 sanctioned posts of Commissioners will be bagged by the Directorates.

As per the Board, they are going to notify the sanctioned posts in less than a week; followed by the creation of new commissionerates and finally, the distribution of manpower in the coming months. Only in future, after a review, the idea is to reduce the number of Central Excise Commissionerates and go for more of Audit Commissionerates.

Let's hope the CBEC is able to speed up the process of implementation of Cadre Review and also give more hands to its own DG(HRD) which is terribly understaffed and overburdened. For a smooth implementation and an efficient upkeep of HR records, it would be in own interest of the CBEC to arm its HRD with more manpower for smooth roll-out of the cadre restructuring plans.”