Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Unity And Trust Are At Stake (GST)....
Those
who have visited the famous Victoria Museum in Kolkata, might have come across
the above declaration at the entrance of the museum. The said proclamation, comprising
of three paras, of which the last one is really amusing.
The Victoria Memorial
was funded by Indian states, individuals of the British Raj and
the British government in London. The princes and people of India responded
generously to Lord Curzon's appeal for funds, and the total cost of construction of
the monument, amounting to One Crore,Five Lakhs of rupees, were entirely
derived from voluntary subscriptions.
The relevance of the
above proclamation, which was signed with an intention - “In their prosperity
will be our strength, In their contentment, our security, and In their
gratitude, Our best Reward”.
कथनी और करनी, saying something and doing the opposite is quite common - taking permission for trading, then converting into self enrichment, resulting in exploitation at all levels in the society.
Time was running out in the Ninth GST Council, several decisions were taken which appears to ring the the death knell for All Cadres in CBEC. The steering committee which was formulated for the cause was found to be missing - having no action plan...
However, On 3rd Feb., under a different name (JAC) meeting was held at New Delhi and a decision was taken to go for Lunch Hour Demonstration on 10th Feb., and mass Casual Leave on 17th Feb. A common minimum program was adopted which is as follows :-
कथनी और करनी, saying something and doing the opposite is quite common - taking permission for trading, then converting into self enrichment, resulting in exploitation at all levels in the society.
Time was running out in the Ninth GST Council, several decisions were taken which appears to ring the the death knell for All Cadres in CBEC. The steering committee which was formulated for the cause was found to be missing - having no action plan...
However, On 3rd Feb., under a different name (JAC) meeting was held at New Delhi and a decision was taken to go for Lunch Hour Demonstration on 10th Feb., and mass Casual Leave on 17th Feb. A common minimum program was adopted which is as follows :-
- Parity with counterparts ensuring at least 5
functional promotions and immediate DPC for all vacant posts;
- Parity in pay matters with
counterparts;
- NFU at par with
counterparts;
- Two representatives
from each Association will participate in meeting with Administration
including Finance Minister;
- All Associations will
support the cause of each Association without any deviation for furtherance of
feeling of trust;
- If even a single
officer is victimized belonging to any cadre, all Associations/ Cadres will
fight for him/ her even legally, if required;
- IRS Association will
write to all CCAs to hold JAC as well as employee grievances redressal
mechanism meetings in a time frame manner;
- Seniority list and
pending RRs of all the Cadres should be finalized immediately;
· IRS (C&CE)
Association will appeal to all the CCAs of Customs & Central Excise to
immediately abolish control room duty, PRO duty, protocol duty of Inspectors in
their respective Zones. Further, on the request of Inspectors’ Association, IRS (C&CE) Association will write a letter to the Chairman, CBEC
informing that “Uniform” is not required for Inspectors in the ensuing GST regime.
The letter will be issued before the submission of Joint Memorandum.
We welcome and don’t oppose the implementation
of GST, but it should not have an adverse effect on our career
prospects. Rather our career prospects should improve due to the
implementation of GST. We feel that if the above genuine demands in National
& Revenue interest are not considered then this disciplined service
will be forced to initiate peaceful means of demonstration to display their displeasure.
On 4th Feb., apart from other
issues the decisions of JAC were endorsed by AIACEGEO in its meeting in New
Delhi.
A meeting was scheduled on 07th
Feb., with the Hon'ble Finance Minister, but due to some unforeseen reasons, it was not held.
In various places the anger of the cadre was visible when the peaceful demonstrations
were carried out.
Meeting with the FM was held on 10th
February, who assured that the sanctity of the service of CBEC will be protected, officers will not be
jobless, the work of CBDT which appears to be surplus will be diverted, further
that Mr Jaitley has assured the central excise officers that their promotions
would be fast tracked and other HR issues would be taken care of.
In our cadre there is strong resentment against the
officers presently heading the Board, who are unable to protect the interests of the personnel and that of the organization as well; as safeguarding the base of the structure.
The issue of resentment is GSTN which is privatized without any accountability.
The officers are having a bitter experience of ACES for no fault of theirs,
they have been subjected to severe harassment and humiliation by their Seniors as
if the work is pending with them & not due to the malfunctioning of ACES. Further, the
issue of 12 nautical miles is a clear-cut encroachment on the territory of the
CBEC by the VAT officials. If these two issues are logically settled then the
officers do not have any problem with scenario of the Pre-GST or the Post-GST.
It is a fact, that the officers of this organization
are more loyal, dedicated and service oriented without any discrimination.
They are more law abiding officers as well as disciplined and in the past, there is no
record / incidence of indiscipline reported, as like BSF, CISF and other
uniformed Service Cadre towards their seniors.
The Department and its staff are tried, tested and
trusted ones and even with bare facilities, they have excelled, whether it is at the
border doing land Customs work, SEZ, Service Tax etc.
Another meeting of GST Council is scheduled on
17th & 18th Feb., which will decide precisely the
rules and laws that are to prevail.
The posts lying vacant for promotions from Group-B to Group-A,
for the years 2014-15 & 2015-16 (between 800-900 posts) are likely to be filled shortly.
The process is on. The resentment of the cadre partially may be pacified but
the issue of recasting of the Seniority as per the spirit of the Apex Court Parmar’s Judgement is the main issue
which needs to be settled across the zones so that parity within CBEC partially
may be restored.
The issue of Financial Upgradation and
Recovery Proceedings of Senior Officers on account of ACP/MACP needs a
compassionate consideration so that the trust which has been breached by the Board and the senior officers recently may be restored again. The cadres in the
CBEC are unique and unless it is united like other organizations, the desired prosperity and
career progressions cannot be achieved, the principle of Divide And Rule will
prevail.
In conclusion, the proclamation signed by Queen Victoria will always rekindle the faith that the sign and design
should always prevail, even though sometimes it takes a back seat, in the face of greediness.
**********************
Valid Dispute On GST.......
4-tier GST rate may lead to classification disputes
The
four-tier GST rate structure will open up floodgates of classification disputes
with tendency among businesses to demand lower rate for their goods or
services, says a research paper. Four tax rates have been proposed under the
Goods and Services Tax regime that is to introduced later this year. "Present
discussion on two standard GST rates (12 per cent and 18 per cent), a lower
rate (5 per cent) and a higher rate (28 per cent) in addition to exemptions
will make the design of GST complicated and increase the cost of compliance as
well as cost of tax administration," said NIPFP associate professor
Sacchidananda Mukherjee. "It is expected that, if accepted, the proposal
will open up floodgates of classification disputes and there will be always be
a tendency among businesses to demand lower rate for their good or
service," he said in the paper posted on NIPFP website. Voices are being
raised already to put plantation crops, labour intensive manufacturing,
infrastructure inputs and air fares under lower tax bracket, he said. "It
is expected that the higher the differences among the tax rates the larger will
be the scope for litigation. The benefits of removal of cascading of taxes will
be balanced by higher cost of compliance, as a result the expected benefits of
introduction of GST may not be achieved," Mukherjee noted. The National
Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) economist pointed out there is
discussion in the GST Council that there will be a separate cess on demerit
goods and environmentally harmful goods. "The objective behind imposition
of cess is to generate revenue to compensate the states on account of any
revenue loss due to introduction of GST during first five years of
implementation of GST. It is not clear whether the cess will be imposed with a
sunset clause or it will continue as an additional source of revenue for the
Central Government," Mukherjee said. The imposition of cess without
provision for input tax credit (like Swachh Bharat Cess) will result in
cascading of taxes and it will go against the fundamental advantage of introducing
GST, he added.
From
Sources:-
The dispute on Nautical Miles is to be redressed apart from the
above.
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