The employees of the Income-Tax Department plan to boycott all search and seizure operations as well as survey operations from July 20 to secure their charter of demands, said Mr Ashok B. Salunkhe, All-India Secretary General of the Income Tax Employees Federation.
Over 50,000 employees and officers of the Income-Tax Department had gone on a one-day token strike on Thursday.
The strike was fully successful. Officers and employees across the country participated in the one-day token strike, affecting the operations of the Income-Tax Department, said Mr Salunkhe.
“We have been staging dharnas and protests from June 7. Today’s strike is the culmination of the first phase of our protests. From July 20, we will start boycotting all search and seizure operations. If our demands are not met, we will even consider going on an indefinite strike,” Mr Salunkhe said.
The two major employees associations, Income Tax Gazetted Officers Association (ITGOA) and Income Tax Employees Federation (ITEF), participated in the strike today.
The employees are protesting the large-scale outsourcing of operations in the Central Processing centre at Bangalore. According to them, almost 80 per cent of the work is outsourced to the private vendors. They allege that most of the work done by these vendors are error ridden which needs to be rectified by the employees.
They are also demanding the filling up of the vacant posts at Assistant Commissioner, Joint Commissioner and Additional Commissioner level. They are also seeking equal treatment for officers who are promoted from within the ranks and those recruited directly.
Of the 2,192 posts of Assistant Commissioners, almost 700 are vacant. Of the 1,300 posts of Joint and Additional Commissioners, 500 are lying vacant, said Mr Rajesh Menon, Joint convenor of ITEF and ITGOA.
Source: The Hindu
Are bhai-sahab,
Itna bat karne se keya hoga. Simple si bat yahi hai yeh chor/dakait balo kis liye agitate kar raha hai-because, yeh kar ne se un logo ko keya milega ? Khir nahi milne se sabhi ko gussa ayegi na !
Phir, assesse ko un log kaisa bolega mere ko yeh yeh dena parega…..
What also do you expect if the employees hold both the Govt. and the tax payers to ransom.
Are they concerned about the harassment caused to the tax payers by holding up their refunds for eternity? Are they concerned about the huge loss to the public exchequer they cause when huge amounts of interest are required to be paid on delayed refunds?
Their real cause of grievance is the loss of their additional income of 10 to 25% of the refund amounts they extort from the assessees for releasing their due refunds.
Excellent way to celebrate the 150th year of establishment of Income-Tax in India!
If 80% of work of a particular type is being outsourced, the staff should be happy that their ‘workload’ is reduced to that extent.
Grievances such as errors in the outsourced work should be corroborated with facts and the outsourcing agency should be penalised.
Other grievances such as filling up of senior level posts, etc. are also to be seriously looked into by the Govt., as these are not intractable problems. However, an indefinite strike by the employees including officers, is not called for. Why is the Govt. dragging its feet on these demands?