Income Tax Employees will observe one day strike on 8.10.2015
EXTEND SOLIDARITY AND SUPPORT TO THE AGITATIONAL PROGRAMMES OF JOINT COUNCIL OF ACTION OF INCOME TAX EMPLOYEES
To
1. All National Secretariat Members of Confederation
2. All Affiliated Organisation of Confederation
3. All State/District C-O-Cs
Dear Comrades,
Joint Council of Action of Income Tax Employees Federation (ITEF) and Income Tax Gazetted Officers Association (ITGOA) representing 97% of the entire work force of Income Tax Department has decided to organize series of agitational programme culminating in one day strike action on 8th October 2015. The Joint Circular issued by ITEF and ITGOA is enclosed herewith. All C-O-Cs and affiliated Organisations of Confederation are requested to extend full support and solidarity to agitational programme mentioned therein, especially the One day strike on 8th October 2015. Resolutions may be sent to Finance Minister and Chairman CBDT, New Delhi. Please keep in touch with the ITEF comrades of each centre.
Yours fraternally,
(M. Krishnan)
Secretary General
Confederation
Source: Confederation Blog
Click to view the 5(five) point Charter of Demands
All the Income Tax offices throughout the country remained closed on Thursday, the 8th October, 2015 in response to a call for a one day strike, jointly issued by the Income Tax Employees Federation and the Income Tax Gazetted Officers’ Association. The two all India organizations, which represent about 97% of the workforce of the Income Tax Department is up in arms against the lackadaisical and partisan attitude of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, which administers the Income Tax Department. The strong feelings that has been generated amongst the employees and the officers at the middle management level is that the CBDT which is manned by the IRS officers exist only for the welfare of the directly recruited IRS personnel, who are in the top management and supervisory positions.
Despite having large number of vacancies in various Group A cadres especially at the level of the Assistant Commissioners, no proposal has been sent to the Union Public Service Commission though the directive of the Department of personnel makes it incumbent upon the CBDT to notify the promotion vacancies in the recruitment year preceding the year in which the vacancies are expected to arise. While this be so, the requisite number of officers have already been directly recruited through the same UPSC, whereas the proposal for the promotion segment is held up. The non recruitment through promotion to this vital cadre has affected adversely the assessment functions of the Department and consequently the tax collection drive. The Finance Minister has made an ambitious statement in the floor of the Parliament for the direct tax collection to be Rs. 7.92 lakh crores this year. This is not only unlikely to reach but given the attitude of the CBDT would be far less than what the Department could collect in the last year.
The denial of promotion at the level of Assistant commissioners has a cascading impact in as much as the promotion to the cadre down below are also held up. The recruitment rules, despite after a decade of the acceptance of the 6th CPC report and more than two years after the last cadre restructuring exercise are yet to be notified. The employees find it frustrating to note that they are being asked to do the job of higher post and cadre without effecting promotion simply because the recruitment rules are not notified. If there is no higher level of intervention, the next phase of the programme of action of JCA will jeopardize the collection of taxes irretrievably as the employees and officers might not take part in the vital survey and search operation in the coming months of the financial year besides organizing a strict work to rule programme.
Due to the nugatory attitude of the Board, especially in the matter of recruitment of personnel through promotion, sizeable functions of the Department had to be outsourced in the last two to three years, which has impacted the quality of output immensely making it necessary for the regular employees to spend quite an amount of time to set right the mistakes and deficiencies, overburdening them beyond tolerable limit. There are number of employees recruited years back as daily rated workers with the promise of absorbing them. Despite the lapse of a decade, no steps are taken to regularize their services, whereas some of the Chief Commissioners have threatened them with retrenchment. The segment of employees recruited on daily rated basis, through contractors etc. has now reached a sizable number of the total sanctioned strength of the personnel in the department and more in certain lower level cadres. Those who are recruited through contractors or as daily rated workers remain with the Department for years together and as and when they raise their voice for regularization they are being threatened with termination notices, knowing fully well that these poor people cannot seek gainful employment elsewhere due to the age factor.
The officers and employees have now come to the inexplicable conclusion that the conduct of CBDT shows that it lacks objectivity of development of its human resource and infrastructure. It has failed in achieving its budget targets and delivery of prompt and effective services to the tax payers because of lack of such human resource and infrastructure. It has no empathy towards the employees and officers at the middle management level who bear the brunt of the work-burden of the Department. Instead of addressing the genuine issues and resolving them despite several round of discussions, the CBDT has chosen to threaten the employees and officers with pay cut, dies non and break in service and other punitive measures. Such steps will only ignite the anger further and accelerate the pace of downfall in the collection of taxes in the coming months.