Inspectors as Escorts for Joint Commissioners

By Vijay Kumar

THERE is a Control Room situated on the ground floor of the Commissionerate. On one side facing entry towards the building, there is a window of the Control Room with the board "Reception". Whereas, on another wall inside the building, there is a board "Control Room". The Inspector posted in Control Room has to perform both duties, i.e. as a Receptionist and as a Control Room officer! There is round the clock posting of Inspectors in Control Room. Around two lakh rupees per month is being spent towards salary of the Inspectors posted in the Control Room.

The Deputy Commissioner (Prev) of Vadodara central Excise-I Commissionerate recently issued a letter to the effect that "officers allotted Control Room Duty will escort senior officers up to the rank of Joint Commissioner, to their respective cabins."

Imagine this humour in uniform. A uniformed Inspector is required to escort JC and above ranked officers to their cabin. Is it that the JC does not know the way to his cabin, or will he/she be kidnapped on the way? In what era are we living? What can you say about an officer who expects another officer to chaperon him even within his office? This is not even a relic of the past British days; maybe this reminds one of the Moghul days. The Revenue Secretary does not have this facility; the Chairman and Members of the Board do not have this facility. No, this is not a facility, this is absolutely contemptuous arrogance. If you cannot go to your room from the entrance of the building, how are you competent to collect revenue, adjudicate cases and administer a system at the taxpayers' cost? Who are you trying to impress?

Are Inspectors who also pass through one of the toughest tests and are rather well paid, meant to be wasted like this. Are they meant to be orderlies? If you want escorts, why don't you hire proper escorts who will cost you only one fourth of what it costs you to have an inspector. Maybe a few retired clowns can be hired to jump around officers to add some fun to office life.

What will happen if another senior officer arrives while the escort inspector is escorting a senior officer to his cabin. Will the senior officer wait for the escort to come back and escort him? And what will happen if two or three officers are waiting at the reception to be escorted? And don't they need escorting while leaving the office?

It is really unbelievable that such despicable actions can take place in the 21 st century and what stuns is the audacity with which such written instructions are given, with absolutely no authority.

DDT tried to contact the Hon'ble Deputy Commissioner who issued the instruction. He was not available in his cabin and nobody would give us his number. He is the Deputy Commissioner(Preventive); what would be the fate of an informer who wants to contact him?

DDT tried to contact the Joint Commissioner (one of the officers who was required to be escorted). We were told he was very busy and he would call us back. He didn't. We tried to contact the Commissioner but failed there too.

We spoke to an Inspector, who strangely asked us, “this is between us and the department; how are you concerned?”

Sir, I pay the taxes with which you are paid for your escorts and excursions.

Strangely, there are a few in the flock who feel privileged to do such duties and bask in the glory of being a Control room officer, all decked up in the finest livery. In fact, they are more at ease doing these ‘escort duties' rather than rummaging through dusty records and drafting show cause notices or replying to Audit objections!

Mr. Abhishek Kamal, Secretary General of the All India Central Excise Inspectors Association has written to the CBEC on the issue.

He says, "this is an example of misuse of manpower in the Central Excise offices, which is not limited to Vadodara only. Most of the Central Excise Zones have regular 24x7x365 control rooms even though there is no legal backing to empower the administration to set up such control rooms. Control Room duty allotment to the Inspectors of Central Excise is not only the man power wastage but also a tool to promote feudalistic approach among the higher officers. The time has come when we have to step out of the colonial mind-set which force us escorting the officers to their cabins instead of providing quality service to the taxpayers and collecting revenue for growth of the nation." He wants the Inspectors to be allowed to perform their duty with responsibility and respect.

Please also see DDT 1218, 1520, 1524 & 2547