Dr Sreekumar Menon is, DG, NACEN - IRS Association Request Considered
THE President of the IRS Association had in a recent letter to the Chairperson, CBEC requested her to post as DG, NACEN an officer having aptitude for training and willing to stay on the Faridabad Campus. [Please see - 23.10.2013]
The Board, FM and whoever else are concerned and connected with the posting of Chief Commissioners have positively responded to the request of the Association. They have posted the most eminently suitable Chief Commissioner for the job.
Dr. G. Sreekumar Menon who takes over as DG, NACEN today is a highly talented and qualified officer, most eminently suited to head NACEN. Highly qualified academically with a doctorate, a prolific writer with over thirty articles in TIOL and several in ELT and other publications; a more prolific teacher - he has rich experience in lectures in NACEN and its RTIs and other premier institutions like National Police Academy, Dr.Menon's posting as head of NACEN is most apt.
We hope he would be able to bring in substantial changes in NACEN to justify the name it has as a centre of excellence. At least to start with, we hope he would be an officer who would be willing to stay in Faridabad as requested by the Association. Not being a Delhi based officer, he shouldn't find it difficult.
The two most important institutions connected with the CBEC are NACEN and CESTAT and unfortunately both are the most neglected. For example, recently the Commissioner (AR) in Bangalore CESTAT was promoted and posted as DG, Safeguards and they have not posted anyone as AR in Bangalore CESTAT.
NACEN is the starting point where the future leaders of the Department are made and it should not be a third rate factory rolling out sub-standard IRS officers who cannot be reigned in the field. Discipline is sadly a casualty in the academy, especially when the probationers go for their field training. A probationer once told me that she does not attend classes in NACEN as she would sit in her room to prepare for the next year's Civil services Examination to try her luck to get into the IAS.
The probationers should have a short stint in a Judicial Academy and they should be taught thoroughly to draft Show Cause Notices and Adjudication Orders; maybe there should be a test on SCNs and Adjudication Orders every week. They should all understand what a ‘Speaking Order' is.
It should be drilled into the minds of the probationers that they are Public Servants and not masters of everyone and everything they survey on. The concept that the two-year stint in NACEN is a paid excursion should change and it should be understood clearly that NACEN is a premier academy where the probationers undergo a strenuous programme to become model officers. YOU SHOULD BE TOUGH WITH THEM.
NACEN should also have a relook on the Induction Course for Inspectors. Now, a newly recruited Inspector is given training for about forty days and dumped into the department with hardly any knowledge about the department or the laws they are supposed to enforce. The Inspectors' induction course should be at least for a period of one year. And a great many of the recently recruited inspectors do not know English and for some strange reason, our laws and judgements are in English, access to which is beyond the reach of these new inspectors. Do have a crash course in English for them - maybe you can tie up with the English and Foreign Languages University to design a short course.
Dr.Menon has a tough job ahead - we wish him all the best.