Arift has appeared and seems to be widening between Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers and those in Customs and GST over protocol, involving guard of honour and salutes ‘demanded’ by IRS officers. Customs officers say that these rituals interfere with their duties of apprehending economic offenders, including smugglers and traffickers. Unlike the IPS and other armed forces, they argue, revenue and finance babus are not regimental, requiring uniforms and British-era salutes and parades.
Abhijat Srivastava, secretary of the Central Excise Inspectors Association, has criticised the move by senior officers overseeing the Mumbai Customs and GST departments to train customs officers on modes of saluting, seating and walking behind IRS officers.
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Apparently, this training was conducted recently at the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics Centre, Bhandup by Additional DG (training) Rajiv Kapoor. Junior officers complained of unproductive hours wasted in training frontline officers on saluting, opening car doors, seating and walking three paces behind IRS officers, providing escort and protocol, giving right of way for IRS officers in elevators and escalators, wearing caps and snapping to attention when a senior IRS officer passes them.
Reportedly, senior IRS officers were upset with an incident report filed against IRS officers for abusing and manhandling on-duty junior officers at the Mumbai International Airport. Deputy Customs Commissioner, Air Intelligence Unit of the Mumbai Airport Customs, Manudev Jain had allegedly threatened and manhandled a junior officer for detaining a passenger with excess duty-free alcohol.
As of this reporting, there seems to be little effort to sort out this issue, but clearly quick action is required to soothe ruffled feathers.
ONGC gets a full-time chief, finally
While rumours are flying that the Centre is planning to appoint a professional from the private sector as the first CEO of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), it has ended the speculation about the next chairperson of the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) by naming Arun Kumar Singh, the former CMD of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd to the post for a tenure of three years. This has ended the long-stretched ad hocism which began with the superannuation of Shashi Shanker in April last year.
Three interim chairmen were appointed during this period while the search-cum-selection panel headed by PESB chairperson Mallika Srinivasan and including Oil Secretary and former Indian Oil chief B Ashok sifted through the candidates, who sources have told DKB, included Engineers India Ltd CMD Vartika Shukla.
Singh’s appointment was enabled by the government’s decision to relax the age for candidature. The previous minimum age prescribed for eligibility was 45 years and internal candidates needed two years of residual service and external candidates needed three years, but after the relaxation of the rule, an eligible candidate should not be older than 60 years.
Singh has got a lot on his plate, with ONGC reporting a 30 per cent fall in its net profit, due to the windfall tax by the government to take away the gains from the spurt in international oil and gas prices.
Woman top cop keen to break stereotypes
Last week, Laxmi Singh, a 2000 batch IPS officer, took over as the Commissioner of Police in Noida, becoming the first woman officer in Uttar Pradesh to head a commissionerate. While she is not the only woman to be appointed to a top government position in Noida, it is still rare to find women in high positions in the state police.
Despite much talk, the representation of women in India’s police force remains low, a mere 10.5 per cent, according to recent data. Apparently, none of the states and Union Territories has achieved their targets for reservations for women in the country.
Sources have told DKB that Singh’s stellar track record was hard for UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to overlook. She was a key player during the Lakhimpur Kheri incident during the farmers’ agitation last year, taking the initiative to pacify the angry farmers after four of their companions were mowed down. She received the Chief Minister’s Excellence Service police medal for it.
During her initial training stint at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad, Singh was declared the best probationer and also received a silver baton from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Having served in top positions in Varanasi, Baghpat and Bulandshahr previously, her current high-profile assignment may be her most challenging one yet. Though over time acceptance has grown for women police officers in Uttar Pradesh, it is still hard for many male cops to accept a “lady” boss. But Singh is determined to change that perception.
