Central Excise and Service Tax Superintendents wear black badges

NEW DELHI - The Superintendents of Central Excise and Service Tax performed their duties with wearing the black badges throughout the country today on the eve of ‘Central Excise Day’.

They observed this day with sad hearts as the first step of Satyagraha, the way shown by the Father of Nation Mahatma Gandhi.

The Superintendents of Customs also took part in Satyagraha, where Customs work is being handled by the Central Excise personnel. This black badges day was observed in each and every office of Central Excise, Service Tax and Customs (where controlled by Central Excise) including all Headquarters and field formations, airports, Inland Container Depots, Containers Freight Stations, and Cargo Complexes etc.

The reason behind this observance of black badges day was totally apathetic and indifferent attitude of the authorities for last many decades in the matters of promotions, career progression, payment of overdue arrears of pay as recommended by various courts, parity with the counterparts of Enforcement Directorate as recommended by Pay Commission, stoppage of harassment, transparent and impartial transfer/posting policy, creation of separate service as recommended on various occasions by the department, direct promotion to senior group ‘A’ post like other gazetted officers, change of recruitment rules, filing of long awaited affidavit in the Hon’ble Supreme Court in promotion case, seniority benefit on promotion like many other gazetted officers, reclassification of the post as group ‘A’ like other counterparts, merger of trifurcated cadre with retrospective effect and promotion on the basis of combined length of service for parity with other counterparts, compensation for undone cadre restructurings due after every three years, time bound promotions to remove acute stagnation, counting of regular service correctly on the lines of group ‘A’ etc.

In the ongoing cadre restructuring of Central Board of Excise and Customs also, no efforts have been made to remove their stagnation or give parity in promotions with other counterparts despite of the very clear marking made by Finance Minister for parity with Income Tax while every other non-stagnated category has been given extraordinary benefits.

The IRS officers of CBEC got their parity with the counterparts of Income Tax in last cadre restructuring and they have proposed their parity with other better placed cadres in the current one but the Central Excise executive personnel have totally been ignored inspite of earning major portion of revenue for the government and dealing with the hardcore smugglers, organized revenue offenders and white collared evaders.

They are retiring after getting only one promotion in the service span of 35-40 years after joining the job at the level of the Inspector of Central Excise while their counterparts in Income Tax, Central Secretariat Service, Central Police Organisations, Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha Secretariat, Customs organisation etc. are getting upto six promotions despite of the fact that their counterparts of Income Tax/Customs are recruited through same competitive examination with same eligibility conditions in same department/organisation with same hierarchy and nature of job. (ANI)