The Cadre Restructuring was rolled out in Oct-2014 by
the then Chairman Ms. Shanti Sundaram.
As per DoPT / UPSC regulations, it was mandatory to
issue Recruitment Rules according to the Cadre Restructuring changes. All are
aware how in a hush-hush manner the Group-A Recruitment Rules were rolled out
ignoring service jurisprudence. As the delay would have been a hindrance to
their career progression and by deleting temporary JTS posts, though designed
and approved by the Cabinet during the time of restructuring.
Now again, for the Appraiser / Superintendent grades
in Customs and Central Excise, the Draft Recruitment Rule/s have been uploaded
on the CBEC website on 13.05.2016. In the schedule, total strength of these grades
is mentioned as 1194 / 2388 / 15526 posts respectively. For promotions to the
grade of Superintendent and Appraiser, the eligibility is three years service
in the grade of Inspector CX / Preventive Officer / Examiner. For the posts of Appraiser,
there is a 25% provision for Preventive Officer & balance 75% is for Examiner.
CESA-Mumbai, do not have any say about the mixing in
the grade of Examiner and Custom Preventive and it is their domain to sort out
the issue. Coming to the large stagnated cadre, CESA-Mumbai has no words to
allege the Board’s blind eye to our promotion prospects.
It is the practise for the delegation/s of the Associations
to seek appointment with Member / Chairman / JS(Admn) / Revenue Secretary to
sort out the grievances. After getting the appointments, the delegations meet
the concerned officers and brought out their grievances. The concerned officers
show their magnamity in expressing their whole hearted support for solving the
grievances, but there is no end result of solving the grievances. They
peacefully retire and leave the Department keeping the cadre’s promotion
prospects elusive at large.
The stagnation in the cadre of Superintendent of Central
Excise is not new. Bharadwaj committee was formed which recommended merger of
all the three cadres which is now in the cupboard rusting. Tewari committee was
formed which also recommended some measures but no progress. Then came Chitra Gaurilal
Committee which recommended creation of separate services. Then came B B Agarwal
& Chand Committee for suggesting ways to remove stagnation in Gr-B. Prior
to setting up of these committees, Board in it’s meeting dated 16.1.1996 (brief
no.72/95), had taken decision to merge the ‘3’ categories of Examines, POs
& Inspector of Central Excise, and also to discontinue the direct
recruitment of Gr-B level of all sorts i.e. Appraisers on the Customs side and
the Superintendents, Gr-B (experts). In
the last 15 years, five committees have given their recommendations for
removing stagnation in the cadre. In between the cadres of Superintendent-Customs and Central Excise approached the apex court for change of internal
ratio and other mechanism for promotion to the grade of Assistant Commissioner.
The Board has tactically admitted and
minuted the strength of Superintendent of Central Excise as 83% and while
filing affidavit and recommended for a change in the ratio from 6:2:1 to 13:2:1
prospectively. But no interest is shown to devise any mechanism to remove
stagnations in our cadre, due to past mistakes.
Now, the draft RRs of all the stake holders i.e.
Superintendent of Central Excise, Appraiser-Customs and Superintendent of
Customs have been issued. All the exercises carried out in the last 15 years have
been thrown into the dust bin and Board has come up as if there are no grievances
and Board’s approach is that it does not have any concern for the stagnated Gr-B
cadre/s.
As on date, Inspector, Central Excise of 1984 batch is
waiting for promotions to JTS, wheras preventive officers of 1990 batch and
examiner of 1995 batch have already been promoted as Assistant Commissioner.
Now the humiliation of working under a junior officer...The relief in the Oct-14 restructuring was the creation of 2118 JTS (Temporary)
posts, which are not filled up fully since October 2014. Board is not showing
any concern in the matter and it has left it to the respective groups to sort
out the issue of reservation. As “GST” is in the pipeline, higher ups in the
board felt that in absense of Group-A Recruitment Rules, the topmost rung of the
“GST” regime may fail to occupy any place & hence in a hush-hush manner,
they have notified the Group-A Recruitment Rules on 22-Apr-2016.
On the other hand, Board is also financially ruining
our Gr-B cadre by denying financial upgradations as per the MACP scheme, by not
resolving the anamoly and forcing the cadre to approach the judicial forum on
their own, which is a costly affair. If any individual / association approaches
the CAT / High Court, they have to bear the cost of litigation, whereas the
Board is using all its resources fighting these cases in all forums for the
individual career prospects of only direct Group-A recruits.
Recently, The GoI conducted a mega event on the Make
in India mission in Mumbai at Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). In the exhibition,
CBEC has put up a stall to apprise the trade about the trade friendly measures
adopted by the Department (i.e. Central Excise, Service Tax and Customs) Though
these are good photo-ops for the senior officers with the Ministers, but what
about the ground reality – the majority of the staff are not happy with the anti-staff
attitude & the double standards followed by the Department iro of non-Grp-A
officers. Plus, the plethora of litigations filed by staff,
whether it is about seniority, pay-matters, vigilance, MACP etc., stand
testimony to the unhappiness of the staff. Even worse, sadly, there does not
appear any ray of hope of things improving in the near future…
Several representations and options are already
submitted to the Board for removal of the stagnations, but no action has been
taken by the Board. CESA-Mumbai had campaigned vigorously for filling up the
posts lying vacant in the Board after cadre restructuring, but when the posts
have been filled up, the vigour of all the dashing officers, who are in the
positions of power, have vanished. Although they are in the chair, but it
appears that the Board is ruled by the CSS staff. Whatever they propose, either
with bonafide or motivated interest, it gets approved, knowing very well that
their action will not come under any scrutiny. Accepting and cursing, we don’t seem
to have any other option. How long will such scenario continue and when will the
Board behave like the CBDT Board, who
are employee friendly. When will that day come ? Wait and watch.
The Association/s of the stagnated Gr-B officers &
their individual units have been making all out efforts during last 5-6 years,
especially after Supreme Court order of 3.8.2011 by meeting the entire Board, Secretary(Revenue),
Minister of State(Revenue), Minister of State(Finance) etc. But it seems that
the CBEC staff matters are not at all in the hands of Chairman, Member etc, but
the Section Officers, Under Secretaries and the likes only matter. The
judiciary as well as the legislature seems to have no impact on the Board’s
attitude to non-Grp-A officers.
Now the only effort and hope rests with the Prime Minister’s
office.
A Joint Meeting of
all the Associations of Central Excise is scheduled on 28.5.2016 at Hyderabad,
and the discussions on the Group-A Recruitment Rules and Board’s arbitrariness will decide the future course of action.
More on MACP in next blog...
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