Cadre merger in Customs and Central Excise
INSPECTORS, examiners and Preventive officers to be called Customs and Excise officers and Group B officers to be called Superintendent of Customs and Central Excise - Bharadwaj Committee recommends.
Acute stagnation and regional imbalances coupled with the sight of Group A officers getting quick promotions with predictable regularity have made the Inspector and Superintendent cadre officers in the Customs and Central Excise department a frustrated lot. This, especially, when they do most of the work and are always held responsible - when something goes wrong. Somebody who joined in Shillong as Inspector in 1984 is still an Inspector, while a 1991 batch Inspector in Delhi is already a Superintendent. The Board last year appointed a Committee under the Chairmanship of CBEC Member Mr. Bharadwaj in order to address these issues and to find out viable solutions. The Committee after elaborate consultation and extensive tours has recommended that some cadres should be merged and this work should be handed over to DoPT for which DoPT should be provided with
- An additional staff of 71 officers
- Furniture and equipment worth Rs 29 lakhs.
- Office space of nearly 7000 sq.ft.
The other important observations of the Committee are
- The Central Board of Excise & Customs (the Board) has a sanctioned strength of 67,389 officers (including technical cadres) in various grades to carry out its various functions. 90% of these Officers belong to mainstream Group B, C and D grades of the Department. The officers in Group 'B', 'C' and 'D', both on executive and ministerial side, are separately recruited / designated for Customs and Central Excise work. With the nature of technical work (and by implication the ministerial work) becoming similar, the need for maintaining separate cadres has progressively diminished.
- there have been acute disparities in promotion prospects within and across analogous cadres. This has resulted in demoralization and disaffection in the adversely affected cadres.
- However, due to historical reasons and almost persistent litigation, the merger of cadres can be implemented gradually as per a well-defined road map.
And their recommendations
- Merger of analogous cadres/posts in Group 'D' and ministerial cadres (both Group 'B' and 'C') was not found feasible.
- With effect from 01.07.2005, all recruitment/ promotions in Group 'C' executive cadre should be made into a unified cadre of 'Customs & Excise Officer'. The promotions from this post should be to another unified Group 'B' executive post of 'Superintendent of Customs & Central Excise'.
- The all India seniority lists should be maintained separately for the cadres of Inspectors of Central Excise, Preventive Officers and Examiners w.e.f. 01.07.2005 and all promotions to the higher grades undertaken accordingly.
- The cadres of Preventive Officers and Examiners should be merged into a single cadre of 'Customs Officers' from a date when all Examiners presently on the strength of the Department are promoted to the higher grade or found not fit for promotion.
- The cadres of Superintendent of Customs (Preventive) and Appraisers should be unified into a cadre of 'Superintendent of Customs' from the date when the unified cadre of 'Customs Officer' is constituted or when all direct recruit Appraisers on the strength of the Department are promoted or found not fit for promotion, whichever is later.
- The proposed cadres of 'Customs & Excise Officer' (including existing cadre of Inspector of Central Excise & Customs) and 'Customs Officer' and 'Superintendent of Central Excise' and 'Superintendent of Customs' should be merged three years after the proposed unified cadres are constituted on the customs side. In the alternative, the Group 'B' and 'C' executive cadres of Customs & Central Excise would be merged after all the existing officers of the newly created cadre of 'Custom Officer' as recommended in (ii) above are promoted to the next higher grade i.e. Superintendent of Customs or not found fit for promotion. Further, no promotions would be available to the officers recruited or promoted to Group 'C' executive cadres, on or after 01.07.2005, before all existing officers in Group 'C' executive cadres are promoted or are found not fit for promotion, as they would be senior to the new direct recruits or promotees of 01.07. 2005 onwards.
- The inter-se seniority in Group 'C' executive cadres, upon various stages of merger, should be decided on the basis of date of publication of results and respective merit in the SSC examination for direct recruit officers and date of Departmental Promotion Committee meeting in respect of promotee officers.
- The inter-se seniority in Group 'B' executive cadres should be decided on the basis of the date of DPC held for promotion of Group 'C' officers to Group 'B'.
Interestingly while some noises are made about the vocal and numerically stronger cadres like Inspectors and DEOs and Tax Assistants, there are some unknown unheard and never cared about cadres in the department like those working in the Communication wing whose voices are so feeble and whose numbers are so insignificant that nobody, just nobody bothers about them. There is this case of an Assistant Director of Communications who is a Ph.D. Those who joined after him in the IRS are senior Additional Commissioners while he still languishes in frustrated despair as Assistant Director.
As the Committee notes 96% of the employees of the department are in Groups B, C and D cadres. Can you run a department with 96% frustrated and disgusted employees?
(See full text of the Report in 'What's New')