AN OVERVIEW OF CR IN CBEC

As per the approved plans, the CBEC will have as many as 119 Central Excise Commissionerates; 22 Service Tax Commissionerates, 60 Customs Commissionerates and 45 Audit Commissionerates. Since Mumbai has the largest number of service tax assessees it has been given as many as FIVE SERVICE TAX Commissionerates; followed by FOUR for Delhi; THREE for Chennai; TWO for Bangalore and ONE each for Hyderabad and Pune.

Noida which has emerged as a key industrial hub in the NCR, is going to be split into many Commissionerates - ONE Service Tax Commissionerate and an independent Customs Commissionerate. To accommodate regional aspirations, Uttaranchal has got Dehradun Commissionerate. Similarly, Telengana will have one Central Excise Commissionerate. In Seemandhara, Kakinada and Vijayawada will have independent Customs Commissionerates. In Punjab, Ludhiana will be a new Customs Commissionerate. The Tughlakabad ICD is going to be split into two independent Customs Commissionerate. To keep Haryana happy, Sonipat will be a full-fledged Central Excise Commissionerate. Goa will have two independent Customs and Central Excise Commissionerates. For Gujarat, Mundra Port will be a full-fledged Customs Commissionerate. Vadodara and Ahmedabad will get two Audit Commissionerates. In the East, Ranchi will be split into two Commissionerates and a new Commissionerate will be created in Dhanbad.

As per sources in the CBEC, Madhya Pradesh will get two new Central Excise Commissionerates in Jabalpur and Bilaspur. Kolkata will get one more service tax commissionerate along with an Audit Commissionerate. Bangalore Customs is going to be split into two separate commissionerates and will also have an Audit Commissionerate. India's busiest port Nhava Sheva is going to have more Customs Commissionerates. Similarly, Chennai will have more Customs Commissionerates. For Guwahati which never had its own sanctioned staff, it will be getting hundreds of sanctioned posts and will also have an audit commissionerate. In total, there will be as many as 60 appellate commissioners and the rest out of 440 sanctioned posts of Commissioners will be bagged by the Directorates.

As per the Board, they are going to notify the sanctioned posts in less than a week; followed by the creation of new commissionerates and finally, the distribution of manpower in the coming months. Only in future, after a review, the idea is to reduce the number of Central Excise Commissionerates and go for more of Audit Commissionerates.

Let's hope the CBEC is able to speed up the process of implementation of Cadre Review and also give more hands to its own DG(HRD) which is terribly understaffed and overburdened. For a smooth implementation and an efficient upkeep of HR records, it would be in own interest of the CBEC to arm its HRD with more manpower for smooth roll-out of the cadre restructuring plans.

-   By Baljit Bedi