Top tax posts remain vacant

Top tax posts remain vacant
Sunil Jain

New Delhi, July 17: With one of the other member of the top brass in the finance ministry travelling over the past few weeks, close to 15 top commissioner-level posts in the department of revenue have been lying vacant for the past two months.

While Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha was abroad earlier, finance secretary Piyush Mankad is abroad till next week, and Central Board of Excise and Customs chief B P Verma is just back from Brussels where he was last fortnight.

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) which selects members for such jobs sent their recommendations to the ministry of finance close to two months ago, but no action has been taken on them so far.

Among the 15 vacant jobs is that of the Chief Commissioner of Customs in Mumbai, which is currently being held as an additional charge by another officer for the past one month -- D K Acharya, chief commissioner central excise is currently holding the customs job as well. The Mumbai region accounts for the bulk of customs revenue in the country and, according to sources, there is a shortfall in tax collections over the targets from this region already. In the first quarter of the year, the shortfall in terms of customs duties from the Mumbai region is Rs 400 crore, while that from excise taxes is Rs 225 crore.

Another top level job which is vacant is that of the Director General of Revenue Intelligence which is the nodal agency for all anti-smuggling and other anti-tax evasion activities in the country. With no new DGRI, the former DGRI, A K Pandey, who is now a member of the CBEC is currently holding the DGRI post as well.