CBEC-Brand Ambassador of Ad-hocism in Service matters

AIT News Network

NEW DELHI. In the era of LPG- (L-Liberalisation; P-Privatisation; G-Globalisation), for anything and every thing, we find identified Brand Ambassadors being notified. However, till date, no Government Department has been notified as Brand Ambassador. In  any move to identify brand Ambassador among the various departments for issues in service matters , Ministry of Finance being the Fund generator, regulator and distributor, it  should take the lead role. The defiant attitude and approach towards the Taxpayers and Industrialists is well known. The main reason for such indifference by the Department could be the disgruntled work force.

Let us analyse the present set up in the CBEC:

The arrangement at the top is ideal –out of the six members in the CBEC holding the rank of the Addl. Secretary to the Government of India , there is a Member exclusively for P&V matters. Also there is the Directorate of Organisation & Personnel Management (DOPM) headed by an experienced Commissioner of  Joint. Secretary level, for the Personnel and career management directly reporting to the Member (P&V) .The entire cadre management on DPCs, seniority, deputations etc. of Group B&A cadres is being handled by the Board and personally monitored by the Member(P&V). Out of the total 65,000 (approx) employees, there is a total sanctioned strength of 12,766 in Group B and around 2304 in the Group A services. In the normal course, everything should have been handled very systematically and efficiently. But strangely, all is not well as could be seen today.After the re-structuring implemented in Nov,2002, there are around 2000 newly created posts never filled up till date!! The creation and distribution of these posts were definitely never need based nor actually required at all. The large number of posts created of Appellate  Commissioners and the posts allocated for anti-smuggling work  all over the country would stand as testimonials for ever. But the cadres of Group C &B of Central Excise side remain the most disgruntled and stagnating even today. There are 8 to 10 Group B officers working under one AC in almost every Central Excise Division of which on an average 4 or 5 will be those in the same scale of pay of the ACs after getting the second ACP on completion of 24 years service. There are around 4000 in the ACP scale and only 250 divisions in the field set up. There were three Committees created by the CBEC during 2003-2004 viz.(i)-Study committee in Feb,2003 on removal of stagnation headed by Sri.SK Mishra, the then Member P&V.(ii)-Study committee on merger of cadres headed by the Sri.SK.Bharadwaj,Member P&V with CC of  Chandigarh as a member in Sept,2003 (iii)-Committee on creation of  Service Tax Commissionerates and cadre re-structuring headed by Sri. RK.Tewari, CC ,Pune in Oct,2004 (who was Member P&V for couple of months-before joining Settlement Commission.)All these committees were set up with the noble purposes and based on repeated representations made by the staff associations of  Superintendents and Inspectors. The Tewari Committee set up in Oct, 2004  had done a commendable work within a record time-limit of three months and  recommended for creation of 266 posts of A Cs as early in Dec,2004 and entrusting the  ACP Superintendents with powers of A Cs for Service tax matters in a time-bound manner. Nothing was heard  there after in the matter.  

The Merger Committee gave the strange   recommendation for merger of cadres with a road map to be effective after all the working persons in the Customs Wing as Examiners and Appraisers/Superintendents are either retired or promoted as ACs !!.

This Committee completely ignored the study undertaken as early in March,1992 by Sri.SK Kohli, the then  DOMS. and also the Board’s decision taken in the meeting on  16-01-1996 for the  merger of the GroupB&C cadres with immediate effect. The very powerful lobby from Customs cadres  could see to it that no follow up was ever undertaken by the CBEC on this decision.During th period from 2003 till date there were at least half a dozen Members of CBEC in charge of the P&V-even for short spells like 2-3 months; giving an impression that this is the safest portfolio in CBEC without any professional hazards. There was a committee constituted in Feb,2004 under the Chairmanship of the then M(P&V) to examine the feasibility of introducing All India Seniority among the Group B,C&D cadres notwithstanding the fact that at the Group B level all the cadres were already having the same!! This Committee has un-necessarily linked the all India transfer liability as a pre-condition for adopting   All India Seniority for promotions only to create confusion among the cadres and they have  easily succeeded in the same. It is well known to all by now that except the huge amount spent for the TA/DA for the All India tour by the few selected, none of these three Committees had brought out any change or solace to all those concerned/aggrieved. Further, to add insult to injury, ever since 1979,all the promotions to the Group A from the Group B cadres are being ordered only on Ad hoc basis.

It will be worth considering the Government of India regulations/conditions for resorting to ad hoc promotions: 

  “The Ad hoc promotions should not be made for the reasons of –

(i)-Absence of Rectt.Rules, (ii)-Revision of Rectt. Rules, (iii)-Cases are pending in Courts/Tribunals for resolution of disputed seniority list.

 Again, it has been stipulated the cases where Ad hoc promotion can be made

 (i)-Where there is no candidate in the approved panel.

(ii)-Where there is injunction by Court/Tribunal against filling up the vacancy on regular basis and the post cannot be kept vacant till the final judgment.

(iii)-Filling up short-term vacancies-Approved panel should be prepared taking into account vacancies likely to arise in the year. Senior most in the panel should be appointed against short-term vacancies of more than 45 days on ad hoc basis”.

From the above, it would be clear that the Ad hoc promotion being made to Group A cadre to fill up  the retirement vacancies by the CBEC is totally against these guidelines as none of the justifying situations are available.

The Ad hocism followed all these years has now brought in the anomalous situation that after the latest promotion orders issued and there is wide disparity in the promotion among the three feeder cadres. The Superintendent Central Excise of June,1991, Superintendent of Customs of June,1996 and the Custom Appraisers of Mar, 1994 have become Assistant  Commissioners even though the promotions are being ordered in the ratio of 6:1:2 among the cadres.

The strange ratio of 6:1:2 fixed in 1989 by the CBEC was in no way proportionate to the cadre strength of 3102:287:581.This ratio is being followed among even after the re-structuring implemented in 2002 with revised cadre strength of  9437:2520:809  respectively. On the pro rata cadre strength the ratio should have been 15:4:1. Even though the review and streamlining of RRs of all cadres was a pre-condition while approving the Cadre Restructuring by DOPT in  Nov,2001 , the CBEC has not done anything on these lines  on the RRs of the Group A service for best known reasons.

 The recent orders, though  belatedly issued on 1-9-2006 promoting ten senior officers as Chief Commissioners have taken into account even the retirement vacancies arising on 30-09-2006. It is really a good gesture worth emulating for all the cadres. But the fact remains that though there are several vacancies of ACs   arisen due to retirement etc , the adhoc promotions from Group B to Group A are not regularly ordered for long what to talk about regular promotion.

The reasons for the disgruntlement   among the Superintendent of Central Excise –the largest among the Group B feeder cadres entrusted with the enforcement of CentralExcise, Service tax and Land Customs work in the field  is well established and there is hardly any motivation to perform the job assigned.

The prolonged policy of Ad hocism adopted in the Personnel management has earned the CBEC the reputation   as Brand Ambassador of Ad hocism in Service matters among all the Government Departments. Now that yet another Member(P&V) has been posted ; let us hope, wish and pray for a positive approach in staff matters of the type discussed above. 

Tailpiece: Recently one DR Appraiser of 1972 working as AC from 1983 onwards (also regularized from 1985 by the review DPC held in Nov, 2000) was mentioning that there is no scope of being considered for promotion (before his retirement in a couple of years) as Commissioner though the 1986 batch DRs of IC&CE   have already been promoted. The true Martyr of ADHOCISM by CBEC—as also the victim of the never ending seniority dispute between the DRs and Promotees.It is high time CBEC also appoints HRD Consultant to keep its flock together and expect some motivational performance from its brilliant Officers on the close of the Financial Year for toning up revenue efforts.  

(  To be continued )