Income-Tax and Customs Departments are facing a nearly 50 per cent staff shortage at the senior levels. This was stated here on Saturday by the Revenue Secretary, Mr Sunil Mitra, on the sidelines of “Fostering trade led growth: strategies and preparedness,” a programme organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
According to Mr Mitra, the Income-Tax (I-T) Department has sanctioned staff strength of 70,000 people, while the Customs Department’s figure is 65,000. “Currently, around 50 per cent of the posts are, however, lying vacant,” the Secretary said.
“The shortage of staff is hampering our work. We are trying to overcome the problem at the earliest,” he added.
While retirement of senior employees is one of the reasons for this shortage, Court injunctions and orders barring promotion of employees are other reasons.
“Some employees moved Court and got the promotion list frozen thereby stopping the promotion process. We have to first get this promotion list cleared,” he added.
Tax collection
In the first seven months of this, fiscal tax collection progressed according to the targets. The direct and indirect collection target for the current fiscal is Rs. 7.45 lakh crore. He projected that the tax revenue will grow by 18.8 per cent this year over the previous year.
On the issue of imposition of Goods and Services Tax (GST), he added that the tax regime will not come into effect from April 1, 2011, because it will require several constitutional amendments. “The Centre and States have to reach a consensus on issues of some amendments,” he said.
