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Revenue dept stir affects work at airports, ports, cargo shops

Operations in international airports, ports and cargo complexes continued to be severely affected as the strike of group B, C and D cadre staff of revenue departments entered the second day today.

The officials and staff of revenue department, income-tax, customs and central excise are agitating over the post-Pay Commission recommendations disparity in pay scales, to a call given by Central Coordination Committee of Revenue Federation.

In all around 170,000 officers and employees all over the country are agitating, among which around 25,000 employees are from three wings of the revenue department.

Joint convenor of the federation in Bombay, Ashok B Salunkhe, said that work in the three departments has come to a halt. With the customs clearances at the Sahar International Airport, Bombay, and Nhava Sheva Port and the Sahar Air-cargo complex, being completely paralysed, it will leave an impact on government's revenue, he said.

Salunkhe said that income tax offices wore a deserted look with cent per cent participation of officers and staff. The massive load of work of allotting permanent account number to thousands of applicants is likely to mount further due to the strike.

The federation has squarely blamed the expenditure department of the Union finance ministry for the agitation.

It was alleged that the department was sitting over a Cabinet note cleared by the Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. The note sought a report by a high-level committee appointed earlier this year to ameliorate the grievances of the excise, customs and income tax staff of revenue services.

Although senior officers with adequate supporting staff have been deployed for the purpose to avert complaints in respect of clearance of import-export cargo, work has been severely affected. Senior officers were manning the cargo and passenger clearance at the airports.

Meanwhile, president of the FIEO, Ramu S Deora, has appealed to the Coordinating Committee of Federation of the revenue departments to defer their proposed indefinite strike in the national interest.

Deora said that the country can ill-afford such a strike at this juncture when the economic outlook is bleak as the trade deficit has widened to $ 5 billion.

The proposed strike by 100,000 officers and other employees of customs, income-tax and central excise beginning shortly, would bring the industrial and manufacturing activities to a grinding halt. As the imports and exports activities would be hampered, the strike would result in adversely affecting the industrial output and production. This would paralyse the economy, Deora felt.

UNI

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