Central excise gazetted and non-gazetted executive officers associations registers protest

Protest also staged at Ludhiana

Chandigarh, September 26, 2012: The members of the All India Association of Central Excise Gazetted and Non-Gazetted Executive Officers, Chandigarh Zone, today registered protest and observed hunger strike wearing black badges, on the call given by its national body.

The agitating members of All India Association of Central Excise Gazetted and Non-Gazetted Executive Officers were demanding immediate approval of the Cadre Restructuring, which may give some relief to the staff struggling for promotion.

The other major demand was removal of anomalies in the 6^th pay commission report. The Association was raised the issue of stagnation in the promotions of inspectors since a directly recruited Inspector has been getting just one promotion throughout the service of more than 30 years. As against similarly placed Income tax Inspectors selected by the Staff Selection Commission against the same advertisement/test, in the sister department of Income Tax in the Finance Ministry itself is getting 4-5 promotions, from Inspector to Additional Commissioner rank in the same period of service.

It was also claimed that the senior officers who joined as Assistant Commissioners are getting much quicker promotions and in a normal career they get 5-6 promotions.

Despite assurances from the Ministry/Administration, nothing concrete has been done to remove this stagnation in the cadre of Central Excise Inspectors which has a perennially demoralising effect on the cadre. The strike was also joined by other staff associations of the department facing similar hardships.

A.K. Sharma, President of the association, said that similar protests were also organised at Headquarters offices of other Commission rates /Divisions at Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Shimla and Jammu and Kashmir.