What happened to CBEC Commissioner's Transfers?
AS per the Transfer Policy of the CBEC, "All annual transfer orders shall be normally issued by 30th April and, in any case, not later than 31st May of the year". We are completing June and CBEC is not yet able to issue the transfer orders of the Commissioners. Work in the Commissionerates is held up with everybody hoping for a transfer/retention or in fear of it. Rumours and gossip are doing the rounds and the only topic of interest in the Commissionerates is TRANSFER.
The other day, I was witness to a Commissioner's tirade against the Board for its inefficiency, incompetence, inability and irresponsibility. He said, "The Board fixes various time limits for us and takes us to task if we don't meet their deadlines, but why does the Board not meet the dateline fixed by it?". He said that the Board had a duty and responsibility to complete the transfers within the time stipulated and the Board had totally failed.
Transfer of Commissioners is not all that an easy job and to be fair to the Board, it is not entirely in its hands. It is a very complicated procedure involving the Board, the Revenue Secretary, the Minister of State and the Finance Minister. Any change suggested at any stage will bring the game back to Square One and the whole process has to start all over again. And so many factors contribute to the delay and there is always a lot of outside influence.