The customs, union excise duties and service tax together gross the highest revenue for the country. According to the budget estimates, this figure is expected to be around Rs 5,05,004 crore in the financial year 2012-13. Despite excise alone contributing the highest to the state coffers among the three revenue-earners, the department — the central board of excise and customs – is not in a good shape. Tension has been brewing in the rank and file of the department: so much so that the staff has threatened to resign en masse by the end of April.

“There are around 11,500 superintendents of the excise department across the country. The revenue we collect for the government goes into its various welfare schemes. Sadly, we never had one for us. Fed up with our low salary structure, poor working conditions and minuscule chances of promotions, we have decided to resign en masse on April 30,” CS Sharma, president of the Delhi chapter of All India Association of Central Excise Gazetted Executive Officers (AICEIA), tells Governance Now.

The grudge
Excise superintendents form the largest force of group ‘B’ gazetted officers in India but sheer numbers do not always favour a cause. At least not in this case, it seems. 

Sharma cleared the staff selection commission examination in 1987 and joined as inspector in the excise department. Having worked on the same rank for 14 years, he got the next promotion, as a superintendent, in 2002. “Most probably, I will retire as superintendent — with just one promotion in my entire career. My peer group in other services surged ahead long, long ago,” he rues.

But Sharma is no aberration. Between April 2012 and March 2014, 65 superintendents of the department will superannuate from the Delhi zone alone. They would have averaged 35 years of working life each by then — and just one promotion in their entire career.

“While we are denied the benefits that come with promotions, it is also stigmatic to remain on the same post for your entire working life,” says Ravi Malik, who still serves as a superintendent in the Delhi office after 28 years of service. Malik is also the secretary general of AICEIA.

The grouse
Not all cadres are treated the same way, though. Take, for example, CBEC chairperson Praveen Mahajan, a 1976-batch Indian Revenue Service official and the first woman to head the department. Since joining the IRS, Mahajan has availed nine promotions to reach where she is now.

Within the organisational set-up, when it comes to the IRS officers, considered the crème de la crème, a very different and fair set of rules come into play. Having cleared the civil services examination, they get an edge over others in availing promotions. But in the same organisation, a person who had joined as inspector in 1976 will retire as the superintendent with just one promotion, Sharma points out.

“We are not comparing ourselves with the IRS officers in terms of promotion. What saddens us is that we lose the race even with our counterparts in customs and service tax sections of the same department,” he says.

The AICEIA alleges that there are wide disparities in promotions among the three cadres of inspectors (central excise), preventive officers (customs) and examiners (customs) to the Gazetted Group B posts and further to the Group A positions.

The appraisers (customs) of 2001-02 have become assistant commissioners, while Sharma (who joined in 1987) and Malik (who joined in 1985) are still superintendents. As a result, the superintendents are forced to work at times even under the juniors of customs officials recruited in the same cadre as theirs. While examiners (customs) and inspectors (income tax) of the year 1992 have become assistant commissioners, the inspectors of central excise of the 1976-77 batch are still superintendents.

The build-up
The excise superintendents’ threat to resign en masse is not a rash action, Sharma says; the resentment had been building over time. After getting no response from the higher authorities on the issue, the staff had organised fasts, dharnas, protests, wore black badges on occasions and even boycotted the excise day celebration on February 24 this year. “We have been protesting for a very long time now. But no concrete and honest course-correction has been made by the government. Whatever they say is only cosmetic exercise,” says Malik.

In January last year, the excise superintendents’ association wrote a letter to the then finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, listing out their grievances. In November the same year, the staff association had met Praveen Mahajan, now the CBEC chairperson, and revenue secretary Sumit Bose.

“They were all sympathetic with our cause,” says Sharma. “(But) it was the kind of assurance we have been hearing for the last several years.”

On January 18 this year, the excise staff wrote to V Narayansamy, the minister of personnel, public grievances and pension, highlighting their plight. Zafar Ali Naqvi, the member of parliament from Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh, also highlighted the problems of excise superintendents in a recent letter to finance minister P Chidambaram.

Their demands unresolved, the association took some harsh measures. The superintendents decided not to put in any extra hours of revenue mobilisation, which is routine during closing of the financial year, especially in February and March. “This has led to a loss of 30 percent revenue,” Sharma says.
The government still faces a deficit of around Rs 2 lakh crore to be made up by March 2013. (As per government statistics, net indirect tax collections stood at Rs 3,08,919 crore during April-December 2012. The budget estimate for the fiscal year stood at Rs 5,05,044 crore.)

The excise superintendents boycotted work on February 24, which is observed as the central excise day in India. From February 25 to March 1, they attended work by wearing black badges to office. And on March 1, the superintendents organised peaceful protests during the lunch hour. “The government has still not listened to our demands. So we are forced to opt for mass resignations,” says Sharma.

In the last week of February, the government asked the superintendents not to take the extreme step of resigning en masse. “The CBEC is working very hard to ensure that this proposal is approved at the earliest. You are, therefore, requested to desist from the proposed agitation at present and give the administration the time and opportunity to get the cadre restructuring proposal finalised,” Shobha L Chari, member CBEC, wrote to AICEIA on February 26.

“We have spoken to the association. We will talk to them again because cadre restructuring is at an advanced stage. We are trying to overcome little hurdles,” says CBEC chairperson Praveen Mahajan.

The root
The 52nd report of the standing committee on finance, submitted in April 2012, had raised the issue of inspectors of central excise and preventive officers getting only one functional promotion during an average service span of 35 years and had asked the government to pursue the matter of cadre restructuring in a time-bound manner. It had also flagged the staff shortage, which affects revenue generation of central excise and customs duties.

Till the 1980s, promotions were normal for the excise superintendents. It stopped after that because the single cadre of inspector was trifurcated into three sub-categories: inspector (central excise & land customs), preventive officer (inspector customs) and appraiser (customs). All these positions merge at Group ‘A’ entry level. Because promotions were on the basis of quota, their huge numbers bogged down the excise superintendents. An excise superintendent stood less than 2 percent chance of becoming an assistant commissioner. 

In early 2000, the government decided to address the grievances of excise superintendents through cadre restructure. The first cadre restructure took place only two years later, in 2002, and it was decided that the procedure would be followed up every five years. But a second cadre restructure is awaited 11 years on.

Moreover, the restructure was not of much help. “We got little benefits. Earlier, our staff used to stagnate at the inspector level but with the cadre restructure in 2002, we could become superintendents. However, further prospects remained just bleak,” says Malik.

According to the DoPT guidelines, two cadre restructures should have taken place in 2007 and 2012. But the government only woke up in 2011 to start the process for a second cadre restructure. The CBEC chairperson agrees that department is aware of the problem. “There has been some stagnation. These are genuine concerns. We are aware of them and we are addressing the issue,” Mahajan says. “We will be able to solve the problem very soon. I can’t specify a date but it will be very soon.”

The excise employees term it as another sweet talk by the higher-ups. “The employees’ grievance redressal mechanism has totally failed. The authorities are not interested in doing anything for us,” says Malik as he prepares for the D-day of their long-drawn battle on April 30.