SOFTWARE DREAMS.... HARDWARE REALITIES...

The above advertisement has been released by the Board in all the major newspapers on the 24-Dec-2015.

Is this in reply to the observations raised by the CAG on the milestones that were not adhered to and to the overall usability and functionality of the whole ACES programme ?

The following table will compare the claims by the Board and the actual ground reality :-

1) e-Registrations - 17 Lakh registrations :-

Module fully functional - the figure of 17 Lakh registrants was already mentioned by the then FM in his Budget speech in Feb-2012, before the introduction of VCES and out of of which only around 7 Lakh registrants are duty paying assessees.

How come the number of Registrants in ACES have not changed even after almost 4 years ?

The Registration module has also not been modified in line with the Notification No.7/2015-CE(NT) dated 01.03.2015. There is no facility to cancel the registration and/or revive the registration as per the new procedure. 

2) e-Filing of Returns - 1.47 Crores Returns have been filed - 100% revenue paid online :-  

Returns filing module fully functional - However the whole purpose of filing returns electronically is lost if the same is not subject to scrutiny & verification by the Range officers & their supervisory officers.

Also the "check" that the next Return cannot be taken up for scrutiny & verification if the previous Return has not been cleared by the concerned AC/DC is a very big stumbling block. 

The divisional AC/DC is also unable to monitor the pendency of RnC at field level, since there is no provision to know the same at his end. Further, the AC/DC cannot see the number of Returns which have undergone RnC during the month or during a particular period. The MIS is completely missing on this count.

Despite the computerization, the amount of duty short paid or not paid by an assessee and the interest to be paid by the said assessee has to be calculated manually. 

3) e-Payment of duty - 100% of Revenue paid online - 3.78 Cr Tax Challans processed :-

e-Payment of all Central Excise and Service Tax duties have been made mandatory to be  done through electronic banking and this module is fully functional.

Total Gross Revenue figures are available through the NSDL website. However, the same is not very user-friendly w.r.t. the amount of duty paid over a period, which has to be calculated manually.

Unfortunately, there is also no breakup of the revenue collected - duty received through self-assessment, duty recovered through Anti-evasion measures, Audit mechanism, Tax arrears recovery, monies as pre-deposit etc., which forces the lower formations to keep track of the same and prepare monthly reports to appraise their senior officers (going upto the Board level) who in turn have no mechanism of verifying whether the figures reported are correct or otherwise.

4) e-Refund / Rebate :-

The module of filing of Refund / Rebate claims electronically through ACES is functional, but the same has not been made mandatory because of which the claims are also being filed manually. 

This increases the interface between the assessee and the Department officials which defeats the very purpose of Automation of services. Also adds to the burden of increased reports that are to be prepared by the lower field formations and the compilation of these reports at the higher levels, as mentioned in earlier point above.
 

It is also a fact that all the refunds/rebate amounts are being credited directly into the assessee's bank account through RTGS/NEFT.

However, there is no provision for bunching of rebate claims of a particular assesee in the Refund module, as such the  work of officers will increase. In order to reduce the work, the bunching provision should be made in the Refund module. 

5) Instant e-Acknowledgement with Unique Identifier /  Unique Identifier to know status of documents :-

This is functional and the pendency status is known to the assessee at any time. 

6) Dispute Redressal :-

The module for Dispute Resolution in ACES is fully functional but not made operational (i.e. not wanting to be used by Senior Officers because of accountability issues, hence discouraging the lower officers from using it).

Famous case of an officer being thrown out of LTU-Mumbai for using the said module for putting up SCNs for approval and the senior officer not being happy about the same.

The Board also does not appear to be very keen about making the usage of this module mandatory for the very same reasons.

Also this is very convenient for the Grp-A officers as there is no track of the quantum of adjudications done by them or the utter lack of it !!

The lower officers are asked to cook-up/manipulate figures to be shown in their adjudication performances report without any mechanism for the figures to be verified and none (upto the Board) being any wiser.

7) 24 x 7 e-Office :-

e-Office (are they referring to the software developed & deployed by NIC ?) is supposed to be used for making an office paperless !!
 

Is the Board sure that they have implemented the concept of a paperless office across all Central Excise & Service Tax offices in India ?

Is the Board themselves following the concept of a paperless office or is it that the advice is meant only for the sub-ordinate offices ?

8) National service desk - 1558 Facilitation Centres in 350 locations :-

Kindly refer to the website (https://www.aces.gov.in/CFC.jsp) wherein it is mentioned that the Board has entered into MOUs with the ICAI, ICWAI and the ICSI for setting up of ACES Certified Facilitation Centres (CFCs) by the members of these organisations.

The Board seems keen to replicate the Customs (CHA) model in Central Excise & Service Tax by roping in these organisations.

But they seem oblivious to the fact that payment to these CFCs by the assessees will in fact increase the cost of doing business and will also decrease the "ease" of doing business in India !! 

9) Export Modules :-

Although the module is available, the use of this Export module has not been operationalised. Due to this, the assessee has to visit the range offices even for obtaining CT-1,CT-2 & CT-3 certificate and also for getting the signature of the Range Officers on ARE-1, although the export is being done under self-sealing.

10) Infrastructure facility at the field level :-

Mumbai, the commercial capital of India, is contributing almost 16% of the All India Revenue in Central Excise  & around 34% of the All India Revenue in Service Tax, but is severely lacking ACES infrastructure.

In Central Excise Zone-I Mumbai, all the four Central Excise Comissionerates (i.e. Mumbai-I, Mumbai-IV, Thane-I & Thane-II) do not have full fledged ACES facility. Similar is the fate of LTU-Mumbai and LTU-Audit. 

In Service Tax, all the Seven Commissionerates, do not have full fledged ACES facility - LAN, WAN and Thin Clients. Moreover, in Service Tax, Officers do not have sufficient number of desktop computers and are forced to share computers. 

All the three Service Tax Audit Commissionerates and the two Central Excise Audit Commissionerates do not have laptop/desktop Computers. Even the Administration does not have sufficient funds under the IT head to purchase the desktops for their own officers. 

Worse, the ACES system is so slow. This may be due to thin clients having only 512 MB RAM instead of having at least 2 to 4 GB RAM.  It may also be due the low-bandwidth lines used for WAN connectivity.

Board has expressed its inability to improve / add to the ACES facility till April-2016.

CBEC while advertising should be truthful about their ability to serve their staff and the trade. 

They are far behind than the State VAT as administered by various States having only one Commercial Commissioner to head the Department.

Kindly refer to the earlier post "Automation of CBEC in CAGs eye" on the 23-Dec-2015, which is totally contrary to the claim of the Board in the above shown advertisement.

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