All India Association of Central Excise Gazetted Executive Officers, Rajkot Unit
And
All India Central Excise Inspectors’ Association,
Rajkot Branch
(REPRESENTING INSPECTORS OF CENTRAL EXCISE – RAJKOT, BHAVNAGAR AND CUSTOMS (PREV) JAMNAGAR COMMISSIONERATES)
Date: 15.06.2011
To,
Chief Commissioner of Customs,
Gujarat Zone,
Ahmedabad
Madam,
Sub. :New Transfer/Placement /Deputation Policy for Customs Zone – Regarding.
We are in receipt of the new Transfer and posting policy for Superintendent and Inspector in the Gujarat Zone Ahmedabad. In spite of various deliberations, the administration has proceeded to issue the new policy and has been circulated on 10.06.2011.
Your goodself is well aware that the policy is over delayed and issuing of customs order and joining at the new place of posting will require another fortnight or so. It appears that there are various discrepancies in the new policy which might be due to hasty preparation of the same to meet the time limit. Hence, the two lists of officers likely to be affected in the AGT, circulated by the administration are replete with errors i.e. because everything appears to have been prepared at the last hour and predictably errors and omission were bound to happen. Further there is a grave apprehension pervading amongst the members of this association that on account of many inconsistencies and anomaly in the Policy, the execution and implementation part of the policy is going to be a Herculean task, if not impossible. Conditions and criterion laid down in the existing policy are contradictory and its implementation is bound to violate the conditions contained therein or produce weird result.
This Association has never taken adamant stand that no new policy is acceptable, however since the initiation and formulation of the new policy was at the eleventh hours, there is hardly any time left at disposal to iron out any grey areas that have crept into the new Policy. This association strongly feels that this is not an opportune time to alter the framework of existing Transfer and Posting Policy or rectify the grey areas of the new Transfer and Posting Policy, as the academic year has started, fees and books purchased and add to this monsoon has set in and therefore it has become increasingly difficult to cope up with any change in the domicile for the officers.
In the forwarding letter, it is clearly mentioned that after implementation of the Customs policy, proposed Central Excise policy will be taken up for finalization, which indicates that you are determined to implement the Customs policy by any means.
Madam, you may like to appreciate that in Gujarat there is no separate and independent work force for Customs. The officers working in the Customs formations are basically officers of Central Excise and posted to Customs formations. Central Excise Commissionerates are providing officers to Customs Commissionerates as per the present practice of ‘willingness’. This is the legal and well established practice and as such no Customs policy can be framed in isolation. It may be seen that all officers at present working in Customs are to be posted in Central Excise formations.
The association, once again like to be on record that your decision to scrap the policy of willingness, lacks assessment of the factual position and practice and fails to visualize the difficulties which will be faced by the administration in doing so. We once again request you to direct the concerned authorities to issue AGT orders as per the prevailing policy. The association also feels that provision of 70 % and 30 % incorporated in the new customs Policy is also required to be shunned, as in the customs formation, Kandla and at Jamnagar Commissionerate there would be only 25 % of officers who would be repatriated to customs and therefore rest 75 % would be senior officers only. Therefore the criterion of the ‘never-worked-in-customs’ should be only on the basis of senior and willing officer only.
However, the following points in the new policy needs to be reconsidered and revisited by your good self.
a.As per the last condition of the para no. 3, the officers are liable to be transferred and posted to any place in the jurisdiction of Gujarat Customs Zone. (emphasis supplied to “any place in the jurisdiction of Gujarat Customs Zone”).
In the meeting held with your honour you principally agreed that the officers will be posted within his concurrent Central Excise zone only. Therefore, instead of the officers being posted at any place in entire Gujarat Customs Zone, the emphasis should have been to post in an around his parent central excise commissionerate. More confusion and apprehension is in the minds of the staff as this particular clause will take route of victimization by posting them anywhere in Gujarat Customs Zone on the administrative ground. Hence it is requested to suitably amend this para 3.
b.Similarly, the para 4 of the Policy pertaining to criteria for posting in Customs Zone is also required to be clarified. Here the condition (ii) reads as under ;
“(ii)Once an officer is assigned a customs tenure, he shall not be considered for Central Excise before completion of the tenure. Similarly, once already moved out for Central Excise outstation tenure, he shall not be picked up for Customs outstation tenure.”
Under the first part of the condition, the boundary between Customs and Central Excise has been made non-porous. The officer once posted to Customs will have to complete Customs tenure, come what may. This water-tight compartment would not be palatable to officers. Second part of the clause is very confusing. It states that once already moved out for Central Excise outstation tenure, he shall not be picked up for Customs outstation tenure. The clause needs to be explained with example, for each sector. Further, it needs elaboration as to what is Central Excise outstation tenure and what is Customs outstation tenure means and still further what the administration mean by the term, Outstation.
c.Third condition, of the para 4 of the Policy is further more difficult to understand and even more complex to implement. It reads as under :
“(iii) Between two outstation postings, either in Central Excise or Customs, there should be a gap of 8 years i.e. on completion of an outstation Central Excise tenure, the officer will not be posted in any outstation in Customs.”
Without the definition of outstation postings it is difficult to exactly gauge the implication of the above condition. Further if the HQ and division postings are considered as ‘station’ posting and rest as ‘outstation’ postings, which appears to be decipherable meaning of the said term, there would be hardly any officers from Rajkot sector who would have not moved out to ‘outstation’ in previous 8 years. From this condition it appears that no officer from Rajkot sector is going to be effected.
d.Para 5 of the Policy pertaining to posting of officers to Customs commissionerate is also not free from confusion. Until the officer is posted to specific commissionerate there would be uncertainty as to where he would land up. Past experience has revealed that the system of ‘preferences’ called for by the administration is rarely being followed in letter and spirit. Yet, the administration has not defined the station A, B and C and has deliberately kept the room from deviating from the policy in the selected case so as favor or disfavor in individual cases.
e.Para 5(ii)(b) of the policy pertaining to Lady officers reads as under :
“(b)Lady officers whose name feature in the list would be allowed to exercise an option of not taking up a customs tenure outstation.”
Again this clause has been drafted probably keeping in mind the officers of Ahdmedabad/Vadodara sector. For Rajkot sector, there is no Customs posting in or around Rajkot city upto 100 kms. Whether Jamnagar HQ would be considered as Outstation posting or not, needs clarification. For the lady officers of Rajkot commissionerate, any posting in Customs formation, is an “Outstation Posting”. Therefore relief extended to the lady officers in the new Customs policy will not be really relief any sort of relief to the lady officers of the Rajkot Commissionerate. Under the above circumstances, whether the lady officers would be allowed to exercise the option of not opting for a Customs tenure, at all, if not willing !!!.
The lady officers of the Rajkot Commissionerate has expressed their readiness to take up the Customs assignment if the Customs formation is set up at Rajkot and even aired the view that Customs Headquaters be shifted to Rajkot, so that the conditions envisaged in the new Customs Transfer and Posting Policy can be implemented similarly at par with the lady officers of the Ahmedabad Commissionerates. Lastly they also opined that if the Customs HQ is shifted to Rajkot city, it would be administratively and geographically better to handle and control the jurisdiction of the Customs formation from Rajkot.
f.After the completion of 4 years in Customs commissionerate/zone the policy is silent about the repatriation of the officers. This is grave cause of concern even in the present policy as an officer who has completed more than his tenure in Customs is not brought back to parent commissionerate even after 4 year or extended period and his being thrown at the mercy of the administration to post it any where in the Zone as per the vacancy. However, it is further to mention that in spite of the vacancy in the parent commissionerate he is subjected to whims of the administration. This concern may be addressed in this policy.
g.The new customs policy is not in consonance and repugnant to the existing central excise policies which are presently effective in various Central Excise zones. For eg. An officer who has not completed the station tenure in Central Excise will be compelled to move out of that station due to new Customs policy.
h.As per para 5 (i) “officers from South Gujarat Zone shall not be posted in the same station, where they were working before allocated to Customs Zone” this point is in contrast to the postings for Ahmedabad Zone as no such condition have been imposed on officers being posted to Customs from Ahmedabad Zone. An officer posted in Ahmedabad Central Excise may be posted to Customs in Ahmedabad city however the officers from South Gujarat Zone have to compulsorily change their station in case of Customs postings. Why this discrimination among the same cadre of officers when the entire Gujarat Customs is considered as single Zone and the idea is to give exposure to all. This lacuna may be kindly rectified.
i.In line with Transfer / Placement Policy of Group “A” Officers circulated by ministry vide letter F. No. A-22011/03/2008-Ad.II dated 05.04.2011 at para 9.5, an officer requesting retention at a particular station on the ground that his / her child/ward is studying in the Class – X and Class – XII is required to be considered favorably and therefore in the new Custom policy the condition of Class – X, is required to added besides Class – XII condition. Further it would be apt to mention that w.e.f. the academic year 2011-12, the system of single board examination in class – XII in the State Board, is being dispensed with and new semester, wherein a child has to face four board examination in part in four semesters and all four semesters carry equal weightage and importance for the final result of Class – XII. Accordingly, the members of this Association are of view that not only Class- X and Class – XII, the officers be considered for his preferred station but in newly panned out scenario Class – XI has also equal importance and therefore the officers whose ward are studying in standard 10, 11 and 12 may considered for their preferred station.
j. Further as per para 5.5 of the terms and tenure of stay at different stations / cities of the country the Group “A” Transfer Policy. At the said para, it is laid down that the time spent at certain (non-sensitive) posts shall not be counted for computing the overall period for particular station. Accordingly, keeping in view the provisions made vide para 5.5 of the Transfer / Placement Policy for Group-A officers, it is requested that a provision, on similar line may also be made in the case of Group-B and Group-C officers of the Commissionerate too. This Association proposes the following (non-sensitive) posts/sections in the commissionerate of Rajkot sector, the tenure spent at which, should not be counted for computing overall period at any Headquarters for the purpose of Transferring Group- B and C officers :
(i) Legal (ii) RRA, (iii) Vigilance (iv) Confidential (v) Adjudication (vi) Statistics (vii) Recovery (viii) Technical (ix) GSO / PRO (x) Training (xi) SPS (xii) All other charges where there is no direct and regular interface with the public and trade.
Accordingly, it is requested that the existing Transfer Policy of the Group B and C officer, be amended in line with the Transfer/Placement Policy of Group - A officers. However, while counting the tenure in the aforesaid manner, the officer should have option so as to include the tenure at above non-sensitive sections as well. While conducting the Annual General Transfer, 2011 the period for which the officers worked at above non-sensitive charge/s should be excluded for the purpose of counting station / Headquarters tenure of six / four years.
In view of the above inconsistency and to end the logjam, it is earnestly requested that the new Transfer and Posting policy be put to moratorium or either call for willingness of the officer to move to Customs formation, so that the issue can be resolved without much hassles and causing havoc amongst the officers and their family members due to following reasons.
The associations, once again reiterate and lodge the protest against the new Customs policy, and have genuine apprehensions that the administration may not be able to issue AGT, complying all the provisions of the new policy and it will consequently only prolong the period of uncertainty and stress among the members. IT IS ONCE AGAIN REQUESTED TO DEFFER WITH THE NEW CUSTOMS POLICY LIKE THE EXCISE POLICY IS DEFERRED AFTER TAKING INTO ACCOUNT ALL THE FACTORS AND ITS REPURCUSSIONS.
Yours faithfully,
(G.K.Jhala) (Dilip J. Pandya)
Secretary Secretary
Superintendent Association Inspectors Association
Rajkot Rajkot
Copy submitted to :
God please give sad buddhi to MAMTA of Customs, otherwise she have to face and call up the staff back, as now MAMTA of WB is calling back industrialist after throwing TATA from WB
ReplyDeleteOrder of Customs Zone Gujarat, Ahmedabad in respect of Inspectors and Superintendent issued.
ReplyDeleteon 21.06.2011