CBEC finally finds Under-Secretaries
Yesterday we had reported about the CBEC posting 18 under-secretaries in the Board. Pity the poor Board; it was functioning without so many under sectaries all these days. All the USs had become Joint Commissioners and were posted out, with the result, there was hardly any US in the Board and DDT had to bear the brunt. There was nothing coming from the Board. Now that 18 Assistant Commissioners/Deputy Commissioners have been posted to the Board, we can expect some action – provided these officers join their new posting. Board is capable of issuing a notification without a corrigendum, but there is no transfer order without a corrigendum. Not all the officers posted to the Board are without influence; some of them can certainly get their orders modified. Every transfer has a rider that the transferred officers should be relieved immediately and that all representations have been considered and there will be no further change. But the well connected and powerful officers know that this is a joke and there will always be a supplementary order. DDT by no stretch of imagination is suggesting that there should not be any amendments to the order. Mistakes have to be corrected, but the sad part is this happens only for the influential and powerful officers.
While the Board was short of under secretaries, there is no shortage of Chief Commissioners and so the Board had recently down-soured some of its work to the DGs. For example, the DG, Export Promotion was given the following assignments:-
(1) All work relating to Draft Audit Paragraphs, Action Taken Notes (DAPs/ATNs) and reports of C&AG and PAC; follow up action with C&AG, on Customs matters, excluding drawback.
(2) Following Export Promotion Schemes and work related thereto (both Customs and Central Excise).
(i) 100% Export Oriented Units.
(ii) Free Trade Zones, Export Processing Zones and Special Economic Zones
(iii) Special Jewellery Complexes and Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Schemes.
(iv) Software Technology Park and Electronic Hardware Technology Park Schemes.
(3) Monitoring of above Export Promotion Scheme, analysis of Periodical reports/returns/statistics, All Notifications relating to the above scheme (both Customs and Central Excise).
(4) Meeting of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), Board of Approvals (BOA), Inter-Ministerial Standing Committee (IMSC) etc., meetings with DGFT/Ministry of Commerce on Matters relating to above Export Promotion Schemes and interaction with Trade, Export Promotion Councils.
And the DG, Safeguards was made in charge of
(1) Basic work related to Formulation and interpretation of rules of Origin and Operational certification procedures.
(2) Meetings with Ministry of Commerce, on matters concerning Rules of Origin and value additions aspects of Free Trade Agreement.
As the pyramid is getting more and more inverted, Board should brush up theories of gravity.