TIOL - COB( WEB) - 354
JULY 25, 2013
By Shailendra Kumar, Editor
THE doctrine of exhortation usually works well in the private sector.
But it necessarily fails in the Government sector! But, why? Let's find
its answer from a live issue confronting the UPA Government. When it
comes to the need for collecting more revenue so that fiscal deficit
could be contained, the usual exhortation to revenue officers from their
bosses in the North Block is to do their job in a business-like
fashion. What do they mean by the term business-like? One of the
pedestrian interpretations by applying the principles of Mimansa or
Maxwell could be that one must focus on one's performance to get the
desired worldly results. And the performance takes into account the
basic principles of input-output ratio, and when the output is more than
the input, it can be construed as business-like. But when it comes to
following the same principle in the domain of political governance, our
political masters as well as their trusted bureaucrats tend to generally
forget the business-like approach.
If that is not so how can
one explain the inordinate delay in implementing a very simple
'administrative business' proposal - Spend Rs 732 Cr and get back Rs
68000 Cr! Yes, I am referring to the proposal of CBEC Cadre Review. As
back as in May, 2012, the Department of Expenditure had issued an OM to
grant waiver to the CBEC proposal when there was a freeze on creation of
new posts. Since the proposal was all about earning extra revenue for
the exchequer, the waiver was granted to spend Rs 732 cr to implement
the detailed restructuring proposal, promising an additional annual
revenue of Rs 68,000 Cr per annum. In fact, the first approval was
granted by the Department of Expenditure in May, 2011. It was followed
by a meeting of the Finance Minister and the DoP&T Minister. In
April, 2012, the first note was sent to the Committee of Secretaries
(Cos). The file was shipped to the DoP&T, and then it followed the
oscillatory path between the DoP&T and the North Block to answer the
queries raised at regular intervals. After one year, yet another
approval was taken from the Department of Expenditure in June this year,
and a fresh CoS note was sent. Finally, on July 13, the file was sent
to the Cabinet Secretariat for fixation of date for CoS meeting. Mind
it, this is after the CoS has approved the CBDT case and the Group of
Ministers has also evolved certain principles to give its nod to the
Apex, HAG+ and HAG grades posts, and the same was followed by the Union
Cabinet.
Let's now take a quick look at the highlights of the final draft of the proposal:
++ Reinforcement of cadre strength by 17442 posts (The existing strength is 66808);
++ Introduction of two new grades - Apex (16 in number) and HAG+ (38 in
number) (Initially, the numbers were 23 & 72 respectively);
++ Upgradation of all 47 HAG posts to 54;
++ Setting up of a new Directorate of International Customs (Such a
Directorate is the need of the hour to coordinate India's efforts with
the WCO, WTO, WIPO and others);
++ Given the volume of litigation, there is a proposal to upgrade the Directorate of Legal Affairs to HAG+ level;
++ 2118 temporary posts (non-cadre) for five years have been proposed
to overcome stagnation in Group B Gazetted. This is to clear stagnation;
++ The number of Central Excise Commissionerates is proposed to be
enhanced from 93 to 119; for the Customs from 35 to 60 and the Service
tax from 7 to 22;
++ 45 new Audit Commissionerates are proposed
to be set up, and the number of Customs Commissionerate (Preventive) to
be jacked from 34 to 60;
++ The number of LTUs to be increased from 4 to 8;
++ To provide promotional avenues to officers, the Board has proposed
additional posts of 5160 Superintendent & 5040 posts of Inspector;
++ There is a proposal to enhance the strength of CAO (Group A) from
155 to 349 and Administrative officer levels by 616 posts from existing
984 to 1600.
Going by the contribution of service tax (CBEC
collected Rs 1.32 lakh crore last fiscal) and the fact that the services
sector is going to account for more of GDP in the coming years, the
focus is required to be more on creation of Service Tax Commissionerates
rather than Customs. In place of 45 Audit Commissionerates the CBEC
should have gone for a few more of Service tax commissionerates as it is
too early to have so many Audit Commissionerates when it is a well
established culture in the Department to ignore the DG (Audit) except
for the audit within the commissionerates. No doubt, audit is the future
of the Department to meet its revenue targets but the CBEC will have to
do more spadework before creating an independent commissionerate. At
present, the state of affairs is that if one is posted to Audit
Directorate, one either feels discriminated or angry with oneself for
having no political or corporate clout to get a field posting. A live
example is the about-to-be issued Commissioners' promotion order, which
is believed to be held up because there are too many claimants for
Commissionerates like Noida.
Therefore, the CBEC should first re-orient
the mind of its officers towards the Audit and then it should create so
many Commissionerates. May be it should go for the same once the GST
implementation becomes imminent and certain. At present it needs more
hands and greater focus to improve service tax collections a la Negative
List and correct the declining PLA/CENVAT ratio, which should be the
major worry for the North Block. And one of the reasons can be the
growing tendency to claim service tax credit for everything.
 As
regards the Group B promotions, the CBEC first needs to do justice to
the existing vacancies. It is learnt that as many as 400 posts of ACs
are vacant. And a quick decision-making to fill them up can help the
morale of a good number of Group B officers, who have been waiting for
their promotion for more than two decades. Worse, even if the Union
Cabinet approves the Cadre Review, given the long history of ad hoc
promotions the CBEC may require more than two years to hold Review DPC
and then implement the new proposal. Strangely, the process of
regularisation of ad hoc promotion has been moving at a snail's pace.
Since ad hoc means no right to deputation of equivalent rank, which
means a major blow to their self-esteem. Regular promotions from Group B
to Group A from 1997 has been hanging fire.
In a nutshell, the
morale of the CBEC officers in the field formations has been at its
rock-bottom at a time when the FM wants them to ensure 19% growth in
their revenue collections. The CBEC has been facing agitation from Group
B and C officers in some part of the country at regular intervals. But,
nothing appears to be really moving at a pleasing pace in the CBEC
personnel wing. Ad hocism remains the reigning 'monarch', and all those
who occupy the hot seats for brief periods in the Board appear to be
whispering.
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