Letter dtd. 21.11.2011 of All India CX Supdt.Association - Measures to motivate and inspire the Superintendents of Central Excise

ALL INDIA ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL EXCISE GAZETTED EXECUTIVE OFFICERS
(Recognised by G.O.I., Min. of Fin. vide letter F.No. B. 12017/10/2006-Ad.IV A Dt.21.01.08)

Ref. No. 207/11                                                                                                             Dt. 21.11.11

To,

Sh. S. K. Goel,

Chairman, CBEC, 

North Block, New Delhi.

Sub: Measures to motivate and inspire the Superintendents of Central Excise.

Sir,

With due regards and inviting your kind attention to your message to the officers and staff on the eve of joining as the family head of the organization, the Association is very thankful to your goodself for wishing to each one for success in all walks of life with family. No need to mention that each and every member of this Association is with you to share the great responsibility to face the challenge lying before indirect tax administration. This Association assures you that all of its members are with you to complete the enormous work in this regard. 

2. Your goodself has mentioned the importance of core functions such as revenue collection, reduction of litigation, enhancing voluntary compliance, employee welfare, time-bound promotions and keeping staff morale high. Your words are really a beacon and source of inspiration for us to strive hard to do our best in achieving the goals set for the department. We, already the demoralized and humiliated lot, further feel inspired by the wordings, “The Board is committed to take care of the officers, staff and their family through a number of welfare measures apart from working for timely promotions and grant of monetary and other entitlements. We will spare no efforts to ensure that the reasonable aspirations of the officers and staff are fulfilled and their family takes pride in the service to the society and the country”.

3. The actual steps to fulfill above inspiring words shall boost the morale of the totally demoralized Central Excise Executive officers and enhance the efficiency of tax administration. These officers always took pride in doing their allotted tasks with the spirit of full fairness. They always provided the best services to the tax-payers doing everything for the department without looking at what is for them in the department. It is also not out of place to mention that the achieving of the ideals & fulfilment of the goals of the organization in absolute manner are possible only when its actual workforce is job-satisfied, the highestly spirited and moralized upto the utmost degree. 

4. Your goodself is very well aware that the intra-organisational, intra-departmental as well as inter-departmental counterparts of the demoralized Central Excise Executive officers are getting 5 to 6 promotions in their service career while these officers are retiring merely after getting 1 promotion. Not only that, many of their analogous counterparts are getting far better pay packages. Moreover, their counterparts are getting even more pension than the salaries of these ill-fated officers of Central Excise due to promotional disparities. The most humiliating and unfortunate thing is that these poor officers have to work under their juniors even by 20 years due to the totally distorted condition of the recruitment rules.

5. The situation was not like that in the remote past when our direct Inspector was able to reach even the level of the Member and the promotee Inspector (even from the post of Sepoy) reached the level of Commissioner as also admitted by your goodself in a meeting with the Association at the time of yourself holding the charge of Member (P&V). But presently due to the distorted, unjust and unfair rules in the CBEC, the single cadre of the Inspector has been trifurcated without any justification into three streams of Inspector of Central Excise, Preventive Officer and Examiner of Customs. Like that, the Superintendent cadre is trifurcated into Superintendent of Central Excise as well as Customs and Appraiser of Customs. The trifurcated single cadre of Inspector as well as Superintendent is re-merged at the time of entry to group ‘A’ by putting common entry Central Excise stream officers 20 years behind the Customs stream officers. It was disclosed by the CBEC on 18.01.11 at the time of the presentation of cadre restructuring proposal that the matter to bring all the Inspectors, Preventive Officers and Examiners of a particular year to the same level of promotion is under examination but nothing happened till date.

6. Such a horrible situation to work under a 20 years junior officer happens only in our organization of CBEC which is neither justifiable by any rule of law or any principle of natural justice. Now, your goodself is pleased to talk of the things like employee welfare, time-bound promotions and grant of monetary and other entitlements to keep staff morale high. Not only this, the organization also recommended as one of the measures to the 6th CPC that our group ‘B’ executive officers should get time scale after every 7 years but the CBEC did nothing in that regard in the latest cadre restructuring. Such time bound promotion scheme with promotions after every 7ytears could be the reality for these executive officers, if the things were dealt with an honest approach. But it seems that only the IRS officers have privilege for every good in our CBEC which impression is really needed to be vanished in your era.

7. On 25.10.11, it was presented to DOPT by CBEC that 1975 or before Inspector of Central Excise is working today as Superintendent after getting only 1 promotion while the Inspector of Income Tax and Assistant of CSS of that batch is working as Commissioner/Addl. Commissioner and Joint Secretary/Director respectively. Like that it was presented that1986 Inspector of Central Excise is working today as only Inspector or Superintendent while the Inspector of Income Tax and Assistant of CSS of that batch is working as Deputy Commissioner and Under Secretary respectively. It was also presented that more than 9000 officers of Central Excise stream got only 1 promotion after rendering 30 years of service. It was further presented that only the officer joining as Inspector of Central Excise in 1979 would be able to enter group ‘A’ JTS post provided all of the promotional vacancies are filled up by promotion.

8. But no remedial steps are being taken to undo the injustice and discrimination done to the Central Excise executive officers. The factual position in r/o the Examiners of Customs is that 2006 Examiner shall enter group ‘A’ in 2012 and they shall further reach the level of Commissioner or Chief Commissioner.

9. It was also projected that only the Service Tax assessee base would be 70 lacs in coming years. It means that we functionally require 14000 group ‘A’ entry level officers for effective, efficient and proper tax administration for Service Tax only earmarking one group ‘A’ entry level officer for 500 assessees. In addition to it, we require many thousands of additional group ‘A’ entry level officers for tax administration of Central Excise and Customs. But nothing is visible to create the required number of the said posts. The number of Shipping Bills, Bill of Entries, factory stuffing cases and number of passengers were projected to the tune of 57 lacs, 46 lacs, 18 lacs and 462 lacs respectively. It also worth to mention that whole of the Customs work under the Central Excise jurisdictional area is being looked by Central Excise personnel. This functionally justifies the multifold number of vacancies at group ‘A’ entry level required for Central Excise stream officers.

10. However, one excellent thing happened in the last cadre restructuring for direct IRS officers. They were given parity with their counterparts of CBDT. One another excellent thing is going to be happened in the ongoing cadre restructuring for them, they are going to get parity with the counterparts of other better placed group ‘A’ cadres and 9 promotions are ensured for them. For other cadres also, all of the eligible officers will get promotions except Central Excise Executive category and their promotional vacancies will even remain unfilled due to the want of eligible candidates. The Association has no grudge against anyone of them including the IRS officers but it was expecting some excellent things for its members also. Their parity with the counterparts of CBDT was not even considered despite of the marking by the Hon’ble Finance Minister and the things were placed before him in mis-stated manner. It would have been really appreciable, if these officers were also ascertained to get parity with their counterparts of CBDT, CSS etc.

11. Despite of the above happenings and mis-happenings, the Association expects and requests your goodself to give a serious thought to the poor conditions of the Central Excise Executive officers. It is hoped in the new regime of your Chairmanship that these officers would be able to get a fair deal in the form of time-bound promotions, pay matters and all welfare measures to feel their families proud enough to get due and deserving social status as mentioned in your message. You are requested to ascertain a time bound promotion scheme to enable the Central Excise Executive officers getting promotion after every 7 years as per the submissions made in para 6 above. The Association hopes that the time bound promotions, welfare measures and grant of monetary & other entitlements will not be the reality only for the direct IRS officers.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

(RAVI MALIK),
Secretary General.

Copy with the request for necessary action to-
1) The Secretary, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, North Block, New Delhi.
2) The Finance Minister, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India, North Block, New Delhi.

(RAVI MALIK) 

source  https://www.facebook.com/groups/centralexcise/permalink/190828191001510/