FM: My successor will also be from the Congress Party
RUPCHAND PAL :
I also compliment the hon. Finance Minister on another issue that is the direct tax today is more than the indirect tax. This is a great achievement and I fully agree with it. . Indirect tax actually hurts the poor, the common people. He had been making every endeavour with all his limitations. First limitation is the mindset and obsession. Second limitation is his team. I shall come to that.
FM : Second limitation is mindset and the first limitation is Shri Rupchand Pal.
RUPCHAND PAL :
I shall come to that later on. This Government has been trying to improve the tax administration. I can refer to one observation made by this year's Standing Committee that this Government has miserably failed to complete the computerization programme. It was estimated at Rs.251 crore and was to be completed by June 2006, as far as I remember. It is 2008 now and computerization has not been completed. There has been inordinate delay in this regard. Complete computerization could have helped. There are inadequacies in PAN also. I had repeatedly asked about the software because there has been some inadequacy in the software itself. Huge expenses have been incurred already. There are more than 13 lakh double PAN cards. Many of them are being misused for several purposes. Now the Government says that we should make them biometric. It is a good thing. But even before that, the computerisation programme needs to be completed.
In certain levels, there are continuing vacancies and the Government has not addressed some small and minor problems. Take for example recruitment rules for customs. For the lack of recruitment of Inspectors and Superintendents, they are stagnating. I am not going into all the details but I am giving you some of the details. For example, the Sepoys in customs are trained with guns at par with Constables in CISF and CRPF . But they are not considered as Constables. It is wastage of human resource. Our trained people in the customs are repeatedly saying that. I had also written some letters but I do not know whether you have received them or not. I have made some positive suggestions about vacancies in the Income Tax Department, for having promotion policy, etc. The situation has improved but it is not adequate. So, there is a grievance. If you reduce the number of people, then only with machine, you cannot earn revenue. The Department of Revenue should be given a more sympathetic consideration because they are contributing to your kitty.