No Two Reports Tally - New Reporting System for CBEC
A CBEC Instruction to the Chief Commissioners and Commissioners says,
At present there are more than 100 reports that are being sent by the field formations on a monthly basis to various Directorates and sections of the Board. Also, the present reporting system within the Department suffers from the problem of unreliability and susceptibility to error as it involves manual compilation at various stages. Consequently, no two reports ever tally. Further, the information so laboriously collected is not readily available for performance evaluation or informed decision making. Taking the above into cognizance, the Board has approved development of MIS, which over a period of time, would eliminate unreasonable and overburdened reporting. The Working Group set up for this purpose has held detailed consultations with all stakeholders and laid down the strategic roadmap for the development of the MIS.
The Board has given several directions on the new MIS. The Board has emphatically informed that no reports would be called from field formations if information sought is available and it can be retrieved from the existing applications. This, if followed, can really change the working of the Department. As of now, the entire time of the field is spent in sending reports containing information which is already available with the Board.
And whenever the Board asks for any information, the sufferer is always the assessee as he has to furnish the information wanted by the Department.
Ten years ago we carried an in-house article THE INDIAN REPORTING SERVICE (IRS) IS IN ACTION; GOES ON RETURN-PRESCRIBING SPREE!
In the article, we mentioned,
WHENEVER the CBEC wants to prove that it is active and working, the first thing it does is to write a letter to the Chief Commissioners about very ordinary things and asking for a report. There are occasions when several members shoot off several letters and all asking for reports. Since t he shelf life of most of the Members is only a few months , these letters are generally ignored in the field and some statistical reports are furnished and the whole reporting episode ends with either the retirement of the Member concerned or a reshuffle in their charge. But reporting as such will not stop. The new Member will ask for a new report and the saga continues. This report is dead; long live reporting - After all they have reduced the Indian Revenue Service into the Indian Reporting Service.
We also suggested a new report on the following lines:
1. | Amount of paper purchased |
2. | Amount of paper available |
3. | Total |
4. | Amount of paper used for: |
a) Sending reports to Board b) Sending reports to others c) Issue of Show Cause Notice d) Issue of adjudication orders in favour of Government e) Issue of Adjudication orders against Government. (Explanation to be submitted if more than four sheets are used) f) Filing appeals g) Others | |
5. | Closing balance |
6. | Difference un-accounted |
7. | Action taken for unaccounted paper and estimated quantity of paper required for initiating action. |
8 | Comments of the Chief Commissioner with a report on how much of paper were caused to be spent by him. |
CBEC Instructions in F.No. 296/127/2013-CX-9, Dated: October 10 2014