Letter for outsourcing of Security and abolition of control room duty

	ALL INDIA CENTRAL EXCISE INSPECTOR’S ASSOCIATION, Surat Cluster Ground Floor, Room No. G-6, New Central Excise Building. (Affiliated to the Confederation of Central Government Employees &Workers) Recognized by Ministry of Finance [vide F.No.B.12017/1/2004-Ad.IV A dated 31.12.07 & 14.1.08] Email Id:-aiceiasuratbranch@gmail.com Blog : www.aiceiasuratcluster.blogspot.in/ FB ID – Aiceia surat branch Phone No. 0261-2461808 / Fax No. 0261-2461808
President  - Kishore K.Upadhyay (Ph.-9328911006)	F.No. AICEIA/2/Surat/2012                                      Dated : 26.02.2015 To, The Hon’ble Commissioner, Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax, Surat-I. Respected Sir,             Subject : Outsourcing of the Security of Headquarters Building i.e. Central Excise Building, Chowk Bazar, Surat - regarding.             With due regards, kindly refer to our discussion during the meeting with Hon’ble Chief Commissioner, Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax, Vadodara Zone, Vadodara held on 23.12.2014, during which, it was emphasised by the Hon’ble Chief Commissioner, to involve duly trained Private Security agencies for security of our office premises. 2.         In this connection, we would like to submit that there is a practice of Control Room duty of Inspectors in our office control room, round the clock, throughout the year. Presently, we are having acute shortage of Inspector ranked officers, and the officers available, are already heavily burdened with work-load. There is wide dissatisfaction among the Inspectors, due to pathetic working conditions, lack of space and infrastructure, non-availability of proper canteen and above all, lack of every kind of amenities in the control room i.e. proper furniture, air-condition, attached washroom, which makes the Inspector ranked officer, feel in a worse condition than a private security guard. 3.         Control room duty was practiced in accordance with ‘Tobacco Excise Manual’, which has so far been omitted and replaced with ‘Basic Excise Manual for Departmental Officers’. The Basic Excise Manual has no such provision of Control Room duty. Due to non-availability of any statutory provisions, lack of exclusive duty list for control room officers, lack of any authority or powers to perform such duties, the Control room duty officers are always prone to any sort of legality arising out of such nature of duties. It may kindly be considered with complete positive outlook that though the Central Excise Inspectors are Uniformed Officers, their uniform is only deterrence to the tax-evaders, and they are authorised only to enforce the Central Excise Act, 1944 and Allied Acts related to its execution, only. Law and Order and security of the State are none of their business. Any action taken by the Central Excise Officers, in these matters, may be held as ‘Excess done by them’ in the eyes of law and may put them into troubles. 4.         Whereas the “Private Security Personnel” are governed by “The Private Security Agencies (Regulation) Act, 2005” and have the statutory powers to provide security to any person or property or both. Accordingly, involving them for security of the office premises, is legally substantiated. 5.         Moreover, as per information available to us, such practice to involve duly trained Private Security Agency has been adopted in various Zones of our department and already been adopted in other departments of our own Ministry. 6.         In view of the above, our Association, earnestly requests your honour to kindly look into the matter positively and kindly do the needful to outsource Security of the Headquarters Buildings to some reputed Private Security Agency. Yours most faithfully,
General Secretary – Maya Shanker Prabhat                        (Ph.-9925260545)
Vice President, Surat Waseem Ahmad (Ph-9978575997)
Vice President, Bharuch Prashant K. Mishra (Ph.-8000659375)
Joint Secretary, Surat Badram Meena (Ph.-9537565566)
Joint Secretary, Bharuch Rajeev Kumar (Ph.-8000078533)
Liaison Secretary, Manohar Kumar
Treasurer, Siddharth Tiwari
Office Secretary, Nishant Neeraj