The employees of the Income-Tax Department will strike work on Thursday to stress the various demands including filling up vacancy and stop outsourcing at the Central Processing centre in Bangalore.The two major employees associations Income-Tax Gazetted Officers Association and Income-Tax Employees Federation will participate in the strike.
Around 42,000 employees and 8,000 officers are expected to participate in the all-India strike, said Mr Rajesh Menon, Joint convenor of the Income-Tax Employees Federation and Income-tax Gazetted Officers Association.
Almost 80 per cent of the work done by the private vendors requires rectification, thus increasing the work of the employees, he said.
They are also demanding the filling up of the vacant posts at the Assistant Commissioner, Joint Commissioner and Additional Commissioner level.
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. In the JCIT (joint commissioner income tax) cadre, about 500 are lying vacant and sanctioned employee strength was 1,250. This will adversely affecting the collection of revenue, said Mr Menon.
“Instead of reflecting on its failure to hold promotion as per the prescribed model, CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes) has warned strict action, as per rules, against the officers and employees, participating in the strike,” said Mr Menon.
Even, the meeting with the Chairman, CBDT held in June elicited only a lukewarm response and no concrete solution was offered, he added.
The employees strike comes at a time when the Central Government has set an ambitious tax collection target of Rs 4,30,000 crore for this fiscal against Rs 3,80,000 crore achieved in last fiscal.
Such an ambitious growth cannot be achieved with such vitiated atmosphere in the department, said an employee.
Promotion for the Assistant Commissioner (IT) was last effected in October 2008. Civil list of IRS (Indian Revenue Service) officers was last published in 2006 in a sinister effort to grant undue advantage to direct recruits over regular employee, he added.
Is this not a great way to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the founding of the Income-tax Department in India?
The demand of the employee for filling the vacancy might be for genuine reason but to stop outsourcing is for taking undue advantage and for filling up their pocket which they were doing in the past for so many year and that is the reason why it has been outsource