REPORT OF PABLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Sir, the Public Accounts Committee in its 79th Report on the topic "Service tax on Banking and other Financial Services" submitted to both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on 21.03.2013 has at Para XVI of Part-B to Part-I has discussed in detail about the staff position in service tax under CBEC. At Para 18 of Part-II, the PAC has recommended as under ----

"The Committee note that there is a lack of perspective planning in the matter of deployment of staff on such a vital source of revenue collection viz., Service Tax. Taking into consideration the amount of revenue collected from Service Tax and Central Excise during the year 2011-12, the Committee are surprised to find that in contrast to the deployment of nearly 40,000 officers for excise, only 4000 to 5000 officers have been deployed for Service Tax stream and that too after withdrawing from the Central Excise stream. Apparently, Service Tax wing has been working for more than 15 years, with no staff of its own. The Committee are dismayed to note the helplessness expressed both by the Finance Secretary and Chairman, Central Board of Excise & Customs in this regard especially when, Ministry of Finance is itself one of the nodal authorities for examining and sanctioning requisite staff to Ministries. The Committee feel that the staff requirement be examined on priority basis by the concerned authorities in order to ensure that the Service Tax collections, which have increased phenomenally from Rs. 407 crore in 1994-95 to Rs. 97,389 crore in 2011-12 does not suffer for want of human resource.

As per the constitution of "Committee on Public Accounts", the report of the Committee on a subject is presented by the Chairman to the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The Reports of the Committee are adopted by consensus among members as there is no system of appending minute of dissent to the Report. After presentation to the Lok Sabha, copies of the Report are forwarded to the Ministry or Department concerned which is required to take action on the recommendations and observations contained in the Report and furnish action taken replies thereon within six months from the presentation of the Report.. Action taken notes received from the Ministries/Departments are examined by the Action Taken Committee and Action Taken Reports of the Committee are presented to the both Houses of Parliament.

Hope an early action on the recommendations of the PAC would be taken by CBEC. But we should try to awake them on the issue produced above.

 

-Ravi Mallik