Every Day is Grievance Redressal Day in Hyderabad Central Excise Zone
HYDERABAD Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax Chief Commissioner AP Varma simply won the hearts of his assessees in an open house meeting organised by the FAPCCI yesterday. At a time when the image of the Department is very low, the Chief Commissioner impressed every assessee with his humility, brutally frank and honest admissions and a promise to set right things. The Department could not have found a better salesman to promote its rating among the stakeholders. The assessees were so happy that he was very nice and understanding that one of them called him Andhra Pradesh Varma. He was humility personified, he was very understanding and sympathetic and disarmingly honest in admitting his limitations. At the same time he did not give in anything or solve many problems, but the assessees honestly believed that here was a sincere officer willing to listen and understand and perhaps that is all what the assessee is looking for.
For nearly two hours he batted a variety of questions without batting an eyelid or taking assistance from his officers. And for somebody who is leaving the Department in a few days ( Varma will be joining the Settlement Commission by this month end), it was commendable effort on the part of the Chief Commissioner to present a good side of the Department.
When somebody pointed out that Grievance Committee meetings are not held regularly, the Chief Commissioner said that every day is Grievance Redressal Day in his Zone and any assessee with any grievance is welcome to meet the Chief Commissioner and Commissioners any day. He said that it would be the experience of the assessees that compared to any other Department, Central Excise officers – even senior officers like Commissioners are easily accessible. Every assessee in the audience agreed!
The Chief Commissioner said that he and his officers are facilitators and the assessees were clients and not subjects as hitherto believed by some officers.
Breach of Trust by Commissioner:
An assessee told the Chief Commissioner that while his appeal was pending in the Supreme Court, the Department initiated coercive action for recovery. The Commissioner asked him to pay the duty and interest and said that he could give a bank guarantee for the penalty amount, which he complied with. Immediately the Commissioner encashed the bank guarantee. Realisation of bank guarantee adversely affects the reputation of his company.
To this, the Chief Commissioner replied that it was breach of trust by the Commissioner and was backstabbing which should not have happened.
The Chief Commissioner also proved his leadership qualities by praising his four executive Commissioners as excellent officers always ready to sort out the difficulties of the assessees.
We bring you here some of the questions put to him and the gist of some of the answers – the answers as such are not that important but what really impressed everyone was the way he answered them – after all there are no real answers to many questions and most often an officer addressing a public meeting and an officer taking a decision are actually two conflicting personalities merged into one. Generally when an officer takes a decision, he forgets all the preaching, counselling, advice, direction and orders of Chief Commissioners and Board Members or even the orders of the higher judiciary. The attitude seems to be “Board members and Chief Commissioners may say so many things, but I have a career to pursue and protect.”