Letter to the Commissioner, CCE, Rajkot regarding AGT

F.No. AICEIA/RJT/1/2008

Date: 15.04.2010

To,

The Commissioner,

Central Excise & customs,

Rajkot.

Sir,

Sir, as your honour is already aware that Rajkot Sector comprises of three Commissionerates i.e. Central Excise Commissionerate Rajkot & Bhavnagar and Customs Preventive Commissionerate Jamnagar. The jurisdiction overseen by these commissionerates is entire Saurashtra region. The distance from one end to other end of this region is more than 500 kms. And top of it, it boasts of very hostile and far-flung areas and vast coastline at inhospitable places where the Customs and Central Excise office are found dotted.

We are now in the third week of April month and it is about time by which ideally the Annual General Transfer exercise should be over. During AGT inter-exchange or intra-exchange of the officers from one Commissionerate to another or within Commissionerate takes place. Owing to vastness of this jurisdiction, often the officers are required to shift their family and domicile, leaving little time to cope up with the situation. Shifting family and domicile accompanies with it many arduous hardship and tasks, which are not quite facile to manage. Admission for their kids/wards at a school/college, finding appropriate accommodation, getting utilities connections at a new place of posting, far away from their present posting, are some of the difficulties that stares at the officer in such event. Under the given circumstances timely issuance of AGT orders assumes great importance and provides much needed succor to the officers. In the Rajkot Sector, Rajkot Commissionerate occupies centrality in the entire AGT process that is to mean that AGT process can only be started in the other commissionerates, i.e. Jamnagar and Bhavnagar Commissionerates, only after the AGT orders by the Rajkot Commissionerate are issued.

Normally, after issuance of orders by the Rajkot Commissionerates, the other two commissionerates, also take 2/3 weeks to wrap up the AGT process. In some of the cases, this involves a three/four tier shuffling of the officers. Say for example, an officer placed at disposal of Customs, Jamangar or C. Excise, Bhavnagar Commissioner has to wait for further two orders before his ultimate place of posting is decided.

Sir, the members of this Association are quite worried and anxious on this count and therefore we urge your kind honour to issue the AGT orders for 2010 as soon as possible.

Sir, your kind attention is also invited to the present position of officers of Rajkot Commissionerate posted to Bhavnagar Commissionerate. During the restructuring of jurisdiction, bifurcation of the Rajkot Commissionerate which was carried out in the year 2001-02, two Central Excise Commissionerates viz. Bhavnagar and Rajkot came into existence. Due to carving of new Bhavnagar Commissionerate, there occurred an inevitable staffing imbalance and an consensus was arrived at, at the relevant time that the deficiency in the ministerial staff in respect of Bhavnagar Commissionerate would be filled by the Rajkot Commissionerate and the deficiency in the executive cadre would be would be filled up by Ahmedabad Sector and accordingly the orders were issued.

This practice was discontinued from the year 2004-05 onwards and only the Inspectors of Rajkot Commissionerate are being posted to Bhavnagar Commissionerate. At present officers of Rajkot Commissionerate are posted to Bhavnagar Commissionerate. These officers were posted to Bhavnagar Commissionerate during:-

(a) the general rotation order issued in June-2008 , which also include the officers promoted from ministerial cadre to executive cadre in May-2008.

(b) the general rotation order issued in May-2009, which also include the officers of Rajkot Commissionerate, on repatriation from Customs Preventive Commissionerate Jamnagar were posted to Bhavnagar Commissionerate.

Some of the officers from above had submitted their representations on various grounds for their repatriation to Rajkot Commissionerate. Out of which only few have been considered, however most of the officers are still waiting for their repatriation back to Rajkot Commissionerate. Meanwhile new recruited officers were also posted in all the three Commissionerates and as per the policy there was an opportunity to appoint/post these fresh officers to Bhavnagar Commissionerate, which would have resulted in creating permanent staff of Bhavnagar Commissionerate and repatriation of officers of Rajkot Commissionerate therefrom, but unfortunately this was not availed. In view of above, the association would like to represent before your honour that the officers of Rajkot Central Excise Commissionerate presently posted at Bhavnagar Central Excise Commissionerate should be repatriated in the AGT-2010, without further injustice.

In addition to above, this association would like to put up following suggestions for your kind consideration:-

(1) The administrative control of issuing of transfer/ rotation/posting order shall vest with the Commissioner i.e. the orders of postings in Range offices must also be done by the Commissioner himself as the Central Excise Division offices are not having the history of posting of the officers posted in their divisions.

(2) The sensitive and Non sensitive posting shall be identified and same may be notified.

(3) Officers should not be posted repetitively to the same and/or sensitive/ non-sensitive postings.

(4) If sufficient number of willing officers is available from Central Excise formation, the request of any officer for retention in Customs shall not be entertained.

(5) While posting officers to sensitive postings in Custom Divisions, proportionate posting of both senior and junior officers shall be done.

(6) Time period/ tenure/ cut off date for transfer and posting should be counted from AGT to AGT, if the officer has been transferred during the course of AGT, irrespective of the fact that the officer has joined/ relieved after a gap of couple of month after issuance of AGT orders.

(7) It is observed that the officers are not relieved even after the order of transfer/ rotation is issued. All the officers transferred/ rotated shall invariably be relieved on or before stipulated date.

Furthermore, it is sincerely requested to consider the above suggestions/ points in the ensuing AGT. The annual general transfer orders are already over delayed which lead to undue hardship to the officers affected, Hence it is once again requested to issue the AGT orders as early as possible.

Thanking you in anticipation,

Yours faithfully,

(Dilip J. Pandya)
Secretary

Copy to :
1. The Commissioner, Central Excise, Bhavnagar.
2. The Commissioner, Customs Preventive, Jamnagar.