ACES inaugurated at Belapur Commissionerate – But does it work?
We got this mail from a suffocated Netizen.
The CBEC website very proudly flashes the following news "ACES inaugurated at Belapur Commissionerate on 23.03.2009". I am informed that it was done by our Hon'ble Chairman, CBEC.
But, dear Chairman Sir, does it work?
A friend of mine visited the Belapur Division office for a dealer's registration last Monday. (Deliberately not mentioning the Division office to avoid 'avoidable confrontations’). To his surprise, he was informed that the Department does not accept Excise / Dealers registration applications hereinafter and the same may be done via the net directly through a dedicated site (www.aces.gov.in). He went through the formalities only to find that the system for obtaining registration does not work. To be fair enough the website works. After filling in the desired details, he is gifted with the desired login/user id and password. But the online registration process simply did not respond after filling in the relevant details. He tried again and again. The 'again' can go on and on. The only message with comes is “Contact the System Administrator". Now where does he search for this gentleman?
So what does he do now? He visits the Division office again with a request for doing registrations (offline) as in the past. But he is informed that the same would not work as the SACER system has been rendered defunct after the ACES has been put to place.
So here is a typical assessee who is waiting one week without registration hoping against hope for the ACES system to bless him with the registration certificate. We are in the year 2009 and this is the standard of computerisation and efficiency that the Board wants all of us to be proud of. And we are thinking of GST in 2010 ???
So what is the status - No backup plan in place in case the Registration process does not work!!! Shamefully, no concern for the unit who seeks to register with the Department. Is it not for the Department to accept his registration and at least assure him that his business would not be jeopardised because the system does not respond. Since the last week, he is desperately concerned over a business opportunity which he would lose in case he is not able to deliver before March 31.
Chairman Sir!! This is just one example -- Technology or no Technology, the fate of the assessee is just as bad as it was donkey years ago. Can you do something to change the mindset and please tell the entire hierarchy to revisit the 'Citizens' Charter' and maybe implore them to go back to the basics -- that the entire system should be used for serving the manufacturing/ trading / importing / service community and not for creating nuisance value under the guise of all the so called 'technical interpretations' et al. Forcibly stopping myself for venting more of the frustration knowing very well that in this system 'Honestly Nobody Cares'.
A suffocated Netizen.
We have a dynamic Chairman who is truly concerned and ready to solve problems and had resolved several tricky issues. Let us hope he will solve this problem.
Incidentally the Government already has a beautiful programme called SERMON which has all the features of ACES and more. Why is the SERMON being dumped for ACES? I asked a Commissioner closely connected with ACES, what was wrong with SERMON and how was ACES better than SERMON except that SERMON is almost free and ACES costs a few hundred Crores? His reply was that for a Department that collects a few Lakh Crores a few hundred Crores is peanuts!
Now what are they going to do with SERMON?