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The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) is in its full strength now with the government appointing five new members. The government has appointed Najib Shah, Ashok K Kaushal, VS Krishnan, Neeraja Shah and Vanaja N Sarna to the board. The first four are Indian Revenue Service (Custom & Central Excise) officials from the 1979 batch, while the last one is from the 1980 batch. The board has a sanctioned strength of seven, comprising a Chairman and six members. Prior to these appointments, it had Kaushal K Srivastava as Chairman and a member, Joy Kumari Chander. While Srivastava will retire in July, Chander will leave office at the end of this month. It is widely expected that Ram Tirath will replace her.
Full strength of the CBEC is critical as the government is cutting it ‘very fine’ to introduce the Goods & Services Tax (GST) from April 1 next year. Since the legislative process has been pushed back by nearly two months, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has made it clear that the Central Revenue Department (the CBEC, in particular) and the Empowered Committee of States’ Finance Ministers will have to work over time.
The CBEC deals with the task of formulation of policy concerning levy and collection of customs and central excise duties and service tax, prevention of smuggling and administration of matters relating to these duties, and narcotics to the extent it is under its purview.
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