CIRCULAR 06-11

CIRCULAR- 06/11                          Dated: 30.09.2011    

Dear Comrades,

After our National Convention on 10th & 11th of June 2011 at Bengaluru, the Circular was due immediately to enable percolation of details of the meeting to the level of our members all over India. However, since we had very limited time left for finalizing and presenting our Memorandum to the Ministry and CBEC on various cadre related issues, the issue of this Circular has been delayed. The events since the Convention are detailed in the chronological order for circulation and discussions at unit levels.

National Convention of the AIFCEEO at Bangalore from 10th to 11th of June 2011:-

The 16th Convention of the AICEIA was convened on 10th & 11th of June 2011 at Bengaluru. The Convention was inaugurated by Shri Krishna Byre Gowda, MLA, Bangalore City was the Chief Guest. Shri D.P.Nagendra Kumar, Commissioner, Bangalore was the Special Guest. Com. K.K.N. Kutty, Secretary General of the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers was the Guest of Honour.

Shri Krishna Byre Gowda, a young, highly educated and qualified and rising star in Karnataka, while appreciating the key role played by us in mopping up revenue also exhorted us to collect more revenue so that the additional revenue can be spent on rural employment, poverty alleviation and overall economic development. Shri D.P.Nagendra Kumar, Commissioner, Bangalore and member in the study group for CR in CBEC, in his eloquent speech has informed that the Government has understood the pains of stagnation in Group-B Cadre of CBEC and promised that the CR will be implemented very soon and that all infrastructural facilities will be improved.

The morning session on 10th was an inaugural affair. The afternoon session was an important affair with the discussion on the minutes of EC meeting held in New Delhi. SG report was thoroughly discussed and wherever required SG and President gave a patient hearing with suitable clarifications. Accounts for the outgoing body period were discussed and passed. Returning Officer was appointed and he has conducted elections to the new Body for the term 2011-2013.

Shri Kousik Roy, has been reelected as the Secretary General. Shri K.P.Manoj, (Trivandrum) has been elected as the President Sri Venkatakrishnan (Chennai) has been elected as W.President, Sri Ajit K.G. (Bhilai) has been elected as Assistant Secretary General . Sri Shibaji Charan Nayak (Bhubaneshwar) & Sri Ajay Saini (New Delhi) have been elected as Liason Secretary & Organising Secretary respectively. The outgoing President, Shri Arun Zachariah.P has been appointed as the advisor to the Association.

The name of other elected leadership of the association is placed underneath:

Vice President (NZ):Malkit Singh (Chandigarh)

Vice President (SZ): B.P.K. Reddy (Hyderabad)

Vice President (WZ): R.K.Meena (Gujrat)

Vice President (EZ): Sanjay Singh (Asansol)

Vice President (CZ): Samir.K.Sinha (Patna)

Jt. Secretary (NZ): Aabhay Singh Shekhawat ( Jaipur)

Jt. Secretary (SZ): C.G.Prabhu ( Bengaluru)

Jt. Secretary (WZ): Sanjay Sriniwasan(PUNE)

Jt. Secretary (EZ): Rajashish Dutta (Guwahati)

Jt. Secretary (CZ): H.K.Ghoshal

Office secretary: A.Satish

Treasurer : Suman Chakraborty

Unanimously the convention opined to fight against acute stagnation and to remove the skewed ratio between the Apraisers, Superintendent Customs ans Superintendent Central Excise, before enactment of restructuring.

Com. M. Bopanna, the General Secretary of the host unit, right in his welcome address touched upon the grave stagnation prevailing in the cadre of Inspectors and Superintendent through out the country.

Com. K.K.N.Kutty, during his address explained the situation faced by the entire Central Government employees of the country and the issues in general that will have to be placed before the Government and the Sixth Central Pay Commission. He emphasized that as long as some one wanted something it was only a desire and only if he really feels for the issue and is prepared to relentlessly pursue it, it becomes a demand. He pointed out that only demands can be met and desires need not be fulfilled.

The proceedings in the closed door session followed thereafter. 21 Units represented by 96 delegates attended the Convention.

The following important decisions and resolutions were passed in the closed session of the Convention:

(I) Constitutional amendments:

 A post of Organising Secretary is to be created as one of the principle posts to facilitate the different issue oncerning the organization and to spread the organization in entire India.

 It was decided that the CEC shall now be able to elect a principle office bearer inclusive of Secretary General’s post in the event of the promotion, retirement and unnatural death of the office bearer . CEC has decided that the voting rights shall remain equivalent to there voting right in the convention and the CEC members shall be eligible to to vote in this regard .

(III) The house resolved to pursue the following issues, which were already on the agenda of the Association:

1. Demand of Revision of pay with effect from 01/01/1996

2. Increasing the interest of GPF

3. Opposing the new pension scheme

4. Abolition of Uniform for Central Excise and Service Tax.

5. Enhancement of Uniform Allowance for Customs

6. Abolition of Control Room duty

7. Demanding filling up of vacancies

8. Removing stagnation and regional imbalances

9. revision of existing ratio of 6:1:2 for promotion to the grade of Assistant Commissioner from the three different Gr. ‘B’ feeder cadres.

10. Proper Accommodation for office and Residence

11. Relaxation in Compassionate ground appointments

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(V) The house unanimously approved a suggestion by the newly elected Secretary General that the out going President, Com. Arun Zachariah.P should be retained as the Advisory member of this Association to make available his valuable services to the Association. Com. Zachariah also consented to make his services available for the Association.

PART-B :

 All the unit Secretaries and presidents are hereby requested to send their latest D.D.O. certificates forth with for application of renewal of our recognition which is likely to be renewed before the end of this year.

 The manner of fixation of Rs. 4600/- grade pay: We have persuaded the issue in Expenditure Department; since the issue is pending in this department for long we have issued one letter to J.S.(Pers.) of Expenditure for speedy disposal of the issue. Unlike Income-Tax we have demanded for an extra Increment for those who have joined/promoted before 01.01.1996.

From the conclusion of the XVIth convention to till date the federation office bearers have paid several visits to New Delhi to persue the different issues that you all know through the blog updates .

 Immediately after the XVIth National Convention our Association took a meeting with the CPSF and our Superintendent Association separately for change of the ratio. Though it is well known to us that the interest of CPSF is not in consonance with the demand of our Association , yet in the past this Association shouldered many issues jointly with us. The discussion with the Superintendent Association had not materialized as it appeared to the team AICEIA that this association was embarking on issues which may not be achievable immediately.

At last on 29th of June at Kolkata, CPSF and AICEIA made a joint submission to the Chairman CBEC on the submission of affidavit to Supreme court on the ration case that was pending for months. On 11th of July the two Associations have a meeting jointly with the CBEC and official minutes of this meeting we have already published in our blog. CBEC on 26th of July 2011 finalized the draft affidavit and the judgement as you all know came out on 3rd of August,2011.

Immediately after the issuance of Supreme Court Judgement leadership went to New Delhi, discussed this issue with ADG ( HRM), J.S.(Admn.), Member(P&V) and Chairman. All of them agreed to a point that the ratio should be changed before the end of September, all these officials were not agreed to conduct Review D.P.C. though it was not mentioned still our Association is not a stake holder on this issue and our superintendent Association though expecting review D.P.C but, could not demand because of their futuristic view. And it appears that Board in all probability would be fixing a ratio of 13:2:1 which appears to be just in terms of strength of people working in a particular cadre.

AICEIA is very much expecting base cadre seniority, but unless the circular of D.O.P&T is changed and its clauses for a multiple feeder cadre is changed this height could not be achieved. We are of the opinion that a court case in this regard is would be a just step towards achieving this goal.

 On inter Commissionerate Transfer issue, Law Ministry has sent the file to D.O.P&T, only after having an instruction from D.O.P&T Board will be able o proceed further. Our team is constantly persuading the issue and trying to have an appointment with the minister D.O.P&T on this issue..

 On the 5400 GP case.We have instructed the lawyer to file a fresh caveat prior to the expiry of the caveat petition we have already filed. The lawyer has done the same and send the copy of the caveat for our records.

He has confirmed that the department has filed the petition on 24.06.2011 and the SLP has been assigned a dairy no. . However, the registry has returned the SLP after noting the following defects. " AN AFFIDAVIT OF THE PETITIONER IN SUPPORT OF THE PETITION/APPEAL/APPLICATION HAS NOT BEEN FILED, PROPERLY ATTESTED AND IDENTIFIED."

The department has 28 days to represent the SLP after curing the defects. Apparently that time is already over. Now they would have to get the delay in representing the SLP condoned before the SLP is listed before a bench for condoning delay in appeal and admission. After vigorous persuasion in the Supreme court for last couple of months the defected SLP got corrected and the constant persuasion resulted in listing of the case for hearing on 17th of October, 2011. We have already engaged one senior and one Junior counsel for whom we are spending nearly one and a half lakh per appearance (app.). Hence all the units are once again requested to submit their due leagal fund forthwith. We especially request Rajastan, Bihar, Mumbai, West Bengal,Kerala etc. to submit the amount as we have not yet received a single rupee from these units.

 It was after the vigourous efforts of our Liaison Secretary Com. Shibaji Ch.Nayak that we got an appointment from Shri Rama Chandra Kuntia, Rajya Sabha M.P from Orissa, a very important functionary of the INTUC.When we had met him in April earlier this year at his residence in Delhi, Com. Kousik Roy and Com.Nayak, and of course Com.Arun Zachariah, our then President, had made a very effective and convincing presentation of our case before Shri Khuntia,and handed over to him copies of all related correspondence and documents. The MP not only gave us a patient hearing for nearly an hour, but also sought several clarifications on the matter,and even noted down some points on his pad. He had assured us then that he will certainly take up the issue with the Finance Minister. We need to follow up the matter now in all seriousness.

The Hon'ble M.P.Sri.Rama Chandra Kuntia has raised the issue of notional fixation of Inspectors from 1.1.96 in Rajya Sabha on 24th March 2011

We once again met Sri Kunthia Hon’ble M.P. at Kolkata on 20th of August 2011 and persuaded the issue of Notional fixation once again. It is learnt that the Hon’ble M.P. has discussed the issue with F.M. and shall convene a meeting with F.M. within a short while from Now.

As a result of this Board has issued one D.O. letter to the Secretary Expenditure on this issue for the first time, we are persuing to put this issue infront of Sri Pawan Kumar Bansal, Hon’ble minister for Parliamentary Affairs for another recommendation.

But, we are afraid that only persuasion may not be able to fetch any result rather a concerted and well thought out agitation programme along with persuasive action is the need of the hour. All units are requested to send their comments in this regard.

On 20th of September 2011 we had a meeting with Chairman and Member (P &V); Member ( P &V ) assured us that the stagnation and the regional disparity would be resolved by this restructuring. The same voice reverberated by A.D.G. (HRM). It is learnt that Board is trying to fix a cut off date initially to promote all the Inspectors up to that date and the residual part would be distributed amongst the respective Zone as par requirement . It is also learnt that the month of October will be very crucial for CBEC and there is a direction from F.M’s office to both CBEC and CBDT to complete the implementation of Restructuring by 31st December 2011.

We once again like to request all the unit office Bearers to send their D.D.O certificates by October 15th.

To

The President,

All office Bearers,

Circle and Branch Secretaries Comradely Yours

For wide circulation

( KOUSIK ROY)