Letter addressed to the Chairperson by Secretary General, AICEIA regarding Cadre Restructuring – Regional Disparities in Promotions of Central Excise Inspectors to Superintendents – Extreme Disappointment of Cadre at Continuing Grave Injustice

At last much awaited Cadre Restructuring of CBEC has finally taken a shape vide letter vide               F No. A 11019/08/2013 –Ad. IV dated 01.08.2014, though it serves little to ease out the stagnation of most stagnated zones and there is nothing to address regional disparity. In fact, it will create great gap between most stagnated and less stagnated zones. One of our key demands i.e. All India Seniority has also not been addressed though DGHRD and the Study Group have conceded to this demand in the meeting on 31.07.2014. We have been continuously presenting our view and discussing our points to eradicate Regional Disparity and Stagnation with CBEC, DGHRD and different Committees/Study Groups etc.  Even during our last meeting with the Study Group on Stagnation on 31.07.2014, we presented our detailed views on Regional Disparity and measures to address the problem of Stagnation and no such measures have been implemented before the CR.  Board has made a great joke to many stagnated zones by way of giving 7, 25, 46, 86 etc. posts of the Superintendent, which will not even promote the Inspectors of 1992, 1994 etc.

AICEIA strongly protests such mentality which deprives Inspectors from their basic rights.  At present, we are thinking on all possible ways to bring justice for our cadre and your views and supports are highly solicited. Today a letter has been written to the Chairperson, CBEC with copies to the Union Minister of State for Finance and the Revenue Secretary, Govt. of India, which is reproduced as under:-

F.No. AICEIA/CBEC/CR/2014/10                                     Date:05.08.2014                                

To

The Chairperson,

Central Board of Excise & Customs,

North Block, New Delhi-1.

Sub: - Cadre Restructuring – Regional Disparities in Promotions of Central Excise      Inspectors to Superintendents – Extreme Disappointment of Cadre at Continuing Grave Injustice. 

Madam,

It is with deep anguish that we write today to lodge this Association’s strongest possible protest on the CBEC notifying allocation of personnel to various formations as part of the CR exercise (vide F No. A 11019/08/2013 –Ad. IV dated 01.08.2014) without first resolving the issue of regional disparities in promotions of Inspectors to Superintendents of Central Excise.  Available information indicates that the said disparities would continue to fester acutely for long even in the post-restructuring period.

 If the CBEC has devised any plans for filling up the posts of Superintendents in a manner that eliminates the said disparities, it is requested that the same may kindly be made known to us also - to this cadre which has been anxiously waiting for some news on this front for several years now, but getting only repeated empty assurances from the highest echelons of the Board that the same will be addressed in course of CR.  From what has been put out in this regard on the public domain, we are unable to discern any measure which will result in doing away with the said disparities.

The members of this Association are highly agitated and dismayed at the continued neglect of this cadre’s burning issues, and the callous manner in which a great opportunity (Cadre Restructuring) to genuinely resolve at least partially some of their problems looks like being frittered away by the select few in the CBEC in their unseemly hurry to ensure immediate and huge benefits to their own kind.

 We can only conclude from the recent developments that the prolonged or rather endless consultations with this Association by many specially appointed bodies and Study Groups and Committees that has been going on at the CBEC’s instance is farcical, and meant only to facilitate a convenient reply to the Ministry that the problem of Inspectors of Central Excise are being addressed in consultation with the Association representing them.

         We request you to immediately order that vacancies in the cadre of Superintendents allocated to various Zones should be filled only in the manner that senior Inspectors from any Zone should be promoted ahead of Inspectors who are junior to them from any (other) Zone, which will at least enable their seniority in the lower cadre to beprotected when  seniority as Superintendents is  reckoned, which as per extant provisions is on an All India basis, and the date of joining as Superintendent is the criterion for determining inter-se seniority of Superintendents.  Further, it is also requested that before implementation of this Cadre Restructuring, All India Seniority regime for Inspectors from 1996-batch (joined in 2003) must be brought in order to bring justice in the cadre.  It is indeed unfortunate that even after this issue was represented so many times, no action has apparently been taken on the same, despite definite directions having been issued to the Board by the Revenue Secretary, Govt. of India also in this regard.    

Copies of certain important earlier correspondence, bearing reference nos. as listed hereunder, in this regard, are enclosed for ready reference: -

11.   OSD/ MPV/Inspector Assoc.  dated 22.03.2013 issued by Member(P&V), CBEC

22.   Nil dated 28.03.2013 issued by ADG (HRM) DGHRD , CBEC

33.  AICEIA/Prom Disparities/2014 dated 10.02.2014 submitted by this Association

44.   AICEIA/CBEC/RR/2014 dated 11.02.2014 submitted by this Association

55.  AICEIA/Regional Disparities/ 2013  dated 17.12.2013  submitted by this Association

66.  AICEIA/CBEC/2012/ UPGRADATION dated 26.06.2013 submitted by this Association

77.  AICEIA/Admin/2014/02 dated 09.07.2014 submitted by this Association

88.  AICEIA/Merger.HRD/2014/06 dated 15.07.2014 submitted by this Association

99.  AICEIA/CBEC/Resolutions/2014 dated 23.07.2014 submitted by this Assocation

                           

Madam, we are also very disappointed that despite our pursuing with your office several times, we have not been granted an audience by you, and we once again request that we may be given an appointment at your earliest convenience so that we may present the cadre’s grave concerns before you in person and also suggest workable solutions to those.

Encl. As above.

Yours faithfully,

(Abhishek Kamal)

Secretary General

Copy submitted to:-

11.  The Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Finance, North Block, New Delhi w.r.t letter No. AICEIA/CBEC/2014  dated 18.06.2014 submitted to her when office bearers of this Association met her, with a request for an appropriate intervention in the matter.

22.  The Revenue Secretary, Govt. of India, North Block, New Delhi, w.r.t letter No. AICEIA/RS/2013 dated 25.04.2014 submitted by office bearers of this Association when they met him, with a request for an appropriate intervention in the matter.

(Abhishek Kamal)