Everything about Central Excise Inspector(4600 GP)

CENTRAL EXCISE INSPECTOR

Job Code: K

Grade Pay: 4600

Salary in X city: Rs.41022          

Salary in Y city: Rs.37604

Salary in Z city: Rs.35890

Vacancies in 2014: 4298

Job Description

Excise Inspector in Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) is one of the preferable post among all in SSC CGL.

Let’s start with CBEC dept., Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) is a part of the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It deals with the tasks of formulation of policy concerning levy and collection of Customs & Central Excise duties and Service Tax, prevention of smuggling and administration of matters relating to Customs, Central Excise, Service Tax and Narcotics to the extent under CBEC's purview. The Board is the administrative authority for its subordinate organizations, including Custom Houses, Central Excise and Service Tax Commissionerates and the Central Revenues Control Laboratory.

Why Excise and customs are separated and why CBEC recruits 3 different posts in 4600 GP i.e. Examiner, Preventive Officer and Excise Inspector.  Basically Customs deals with import & export of goods through ports or airports while excise deals with the goods manufactured and sold in India or service providers in India.

 

Process after Selection

\After getting selected for Excise Inspector in final result your dossiers will be sent to CBEC Head Quarters in Delhi. After receiving dossiers CBEC dept. will ask preferences for the cadre e.g. Delhi CX Zone, Chandigarh CX Zone etc., so no state preference will be asked. A particular cadre may serve one or more state like Rohtak and Panchkula comes under Delhi CX Zone. After receiving preferences CBEC allot CX Zones on the basis of Merit vis-à-vis preference basis.

After allocation your dossier will be sent to the respective Excise Zones and then you will get call for physical test from that respective zone.

Reminder for Physical Test – See CGL Notification (If you don’t fulfil physical standards then do not fill excise inspector in your top preferences)

After being successful in physical test you will get your joining letter.

 

After Joining

 Work profile – Initially it was mentioned that custom and excise is separate branches of CBEC, but in most of the state these branches are under single Commissionerates or Zone for e.g. Chandigarh CX Zone have custom dept. also. So, an excise inspector in Chandigarh may get custom profile and if on filed job can be posted at Chandigarh airport. An Excise Inspector in custom profile will do similar work as done by preventive Officer. But the designation, seniority, promotion will be according to the rules of excise branch.

Further, if not in custom profile, you will be posted either in Excise dept. or service Tax dept.

The jurisdiction of the Central Excise Commissionerates has been divided into Divisions. The area of a Division depends upon the density of the industry, complexities of the commodities being dealt by the Division and quantum of revenue receipts. Each Division is headed by a Deputy Commissioner/Assistant Commissioner and assisted by four to six Superintendents and about eight to ten inspectors in the Divisional office besides the ministerial staff and an administrative officer. Each division is placed under the supervisory control of an Additional Commissioner/Joint Commissioner. [Clerical/File Work Profile]

The jurisdictional area of a Division is again divided into Ranges. Each range is headed by a Superintendent designated as 'Range Officer'. Each Range officer has two to four inspectors in his charge. Each inspector is in charge of a certain number of units, which varies from Range to Range. The jurisdiction of an inspector is called 'Sector'. [Field Profile]

The Central Excise returns or Service Tax returns filed by the assesse after self-assessment are checked by the Inspector and put up to the Superintendent. For any dispute arising out of assessment, a notice to the assesse is issued by the Assistant/Deputy Commissioner of the division or officers senior to him depending on the monetary limit involved.

Audit of the Service Tax assesses is being conducted as per norms prescribed by the Department.  A service tax audit cell is functioning headed by the Joint/Addl. Commissioner under the overall supervision of the Commissioner.  The audit of all units is being conducted by a team of officers comprising of Superintendents and Inspectors.

Preventive section in Excise is to prevent and stop the evasion activities of the assesse including in duty evasion by collecting intelligence or information. The branch is headed by Assistant/Dy. Commissioner who is assisted by sufficient number of Superintendents and Inspectors and is answerable to Commissioner.

 Training - Induction training of Excise Inspectors is scheduled in batches and in Regional Centre of National Academy of Customs, Excise & Narcotics (NACEN).

http://www.nacen.gov.in/

 

Some training Snaps

 

Excise Inspector in Training – Gun will be provided once you get posted in range

 

Work Pressure/Working Environment

 

Excise Offices are not so good in terms of infrastructure when compared to offices of CBDT (Income Tax). Moreover, most of the work in CBEC is still need to be done manually. Offices of Excise department divided in to Commissionerates HQ, Division Office & Range Offices. Range offices may located in Tier 3 cities also.

Work Pressure in Excise Inspector post depends on your seat, if its clerical/file work then you will get enough time for your personal life or other ventures. But in field or range Excise Inspector need to work overtime, on weekends. Workload of Excise Inspector in Range increases when date of filing returns gets over for assesses. There are cases of immense pressures from bosses which is quite understandable through the pictures shown below.

        

 

 

Promotions

 Excise Inspector àSuperintendent (Group-B Gazetted)àAssistant Commissioner à Deputy Commissioner àJoint Commissioner àAddl. Commissioner àCommissioner.

Promotion aspects in excise before cadre restructuring was worst among other offered posts in CGL. Before cadre restructuring, Excise Inspectors are forced to retire at a PB2 post after only one promotion in the service career while their common entry counterparts are easily enjoying PB4 levels after getting 5-6 promotions. Excise Inspectors are getting promotion (if any) merely to Junior Time Scale while their counterparts of CPWD, CSS etc. to Senior Time Scale. Excise Inspectors are also forced to work under the extreme juniors of Customs belonging to the same cadre. So, before cadre restructuring an Excise Inspector take 18-25 years to get promoted to superintendent.

Scenario after Cadre Restructuring – Cadre restructuring created 4035 new posts of superintendents, now new allocated cadre strength of superintendent is 15526. While the new cadre strength of Excise Inspectors is 20638, hence ratio of Excise Inspectors to superintendents is 1.32, initially it was 1.54, so promotion aspects improved somewhat. Recently, a large number of excise inspectors (having more than 3 years of service) promoted to superintendents and 2000+ superintendents promoted to AC.

 

Respect/Power

Being a Uniform job social respect and pride is attached with this post. However, Uniform (khaki) is optional to wear. In social circle other than your department you will be able to show your power/status for e.g. getting liquor bottle free, garments free.

 While in department an Excise Inspector has limitations to use his power for e.g. being in clerical profile he have to do file work which is not adventurous and no use of power, however in field profile an Excise Inspector directly interacts with assesse and he is the in charge of a certain number of units, which varies from Range to Range. The jurisdiction of an inspector is called 'Sector'.

 An Excise Inspector in field enjoys much power than Income Tax Inspector.

 

Excise Inspector position after GST

GST is “Goods and Service Tax”. It is the new single layer tax structure of indirect taxes levied by Central & State Govt. replacing multi layered existing tax structure.

After implementation of GST the Central Excise Inspectors will be coordinated by state Excise departments. The local shops, businesses will also come under central excise department and hence increase in power of excise inspector is expected. Promotion scenario will also get improved.

 

Transfers

Except regular transfers, there are ICT i.e. inter Commissionerates Transfer or Transfer on Spouse ground.

ICT – An Excise Inspector eligible for ICT after 2 years of service, in this case he can put up an application requesting his transfer to other CX Zone but if transferred then he has to lose his seniority.

Spouse Ground- If your spouse is working in central government and both of you are not posted at the same location then you can put up an application for transfer to your spouse location or nearby CX Zone.

 

Money

Scope to earn apart from your official salary is much higher in Excise department as compared to CBDT. Excise department is still following manual procedures and direct interaction with manufacturers or service providers widens the scope to earn extra. Being posted in custom profile you can earn same amount of under table money as earned by preventive Officers.

Moreover, Excise Inspectors has nexus with Charted Accountants, so they know the tax evaders and hence monthly amount to excise dept. is fixed from these tax evaders.

Some Examples – Gujarat is infamous for excise post, huge scope to earn due to lot of industries and custom branch is also under excise dept.

Kundli Border near Delhi is also infamous for excise post. To get posting at Kundli border excise inspectors have to shell out money to transfers section.

 

• Real Experience of X- Excise Inspector

One guy after working as ITI said he wants to go back to Excise (He left Excise inspector and joined ITI after working for 1.5yrs in Excise dept.) from ITI as in excise from day one. An Excise Inspector gets the signing authority. Signing authority means more respect, more power and more opportunities to earn. But yes, then there are promotion issues in Excise as per him.

 

[review]