Central excise attachment to Chennai First week report: (12th march to 16th march) By K.P.Jeyakar.

Day 1: The first meet was following the protocol went to call on the Chief Commissioner, Chennai Zone. In addition to the general discussion, sir talked about few reforms & changes in the Department and asked us to give a feedback report at the end of our attachment.We went to our respective Commissionerates in the afternoon.After meeting Mr.Jagannathan, ADC (P&V), Chennai II Commissionerate, Nandanam, Chennai, I called on the Commissioner. He suggested me to make best use of this exposure.Mr.Sanjay Kumar, DC (P&V), gave me a over view of the Commissionerate. Day2: After explaining me the over view of the 3-week schedule, Sanjay sir asked me to go to the Division-II headed by Mr.Kamban, DC.Kamban sir gave me a brief of the Division and assigned me to Mr.Jose Thomas, Superintendent (Technical). I had a long discussion with Mr.Joseji about the activities of the Technical Section The Think Tank and Repository of Knowledge for the AC/DC.It looks after issues like monthly reports, statistics, status reports, adjudication matters (SCNs & O-inOs), refund & rebate matters, arrears, audit and various permissions and taking various bonds.

Day3: I went to meet Mr.Raja Mohan, Superintendent, Range-II. He is a very senior officer and is well respected for his knowledge. He asked me to accompany Mr. Jayaraman, Inspector, Range-II, on his visit to Sisilex Stampings, Ambattur Industrial Area.It was a very good first hand experience. I learnt about the nuances of checking, OTS-One Time Seal, ARE-1 (Application for the Removal of Excisable Goods for Export without payment of duty) and it multiple colour-coded copies and the procedure how Customs acknowledges the export upon which Central Excise give rebate.In the post-lunch session, I went though the pre-audit Rebate file (rebate amount more than Rs.5Lakhs) of an auto spares manufacturer and learnt about the check-list of parameters checked before granting rebate. Day4: Raja Mohan ji gave me case file of a Central Excise Receipt Audit (CERA). It had 7 objections.Going through the entire file was a very good experience. Later, I had a discussion with him as to the response sent by his Range to the CERA objections. Its an ambivalent feeling that CERA audit is to uphold accountability, sometimes it seems to be too mechanical or literal or narrow in its interpretation. While sitting with Raja Mohan ji during ACES scrutiny, We learnt some of its strengths & weaknesses: Raja Mohan ji asked an assessee to explain us the return filing done in his login. In the assessee longin, ACES doesnt show the previous closing balance & flag the error when the opening balance is not matching; it doesnt flag errors in units selected; there is no automatic save option while moving from one page to the other so the assessee has to re-enter everything again and again if the session expires; Notifications are not up-to-date in the ACES, and hence, it flags errors. The

Superintendent or the AC/DC have to waive off these errors; the ACES doesnt calculate the duty automatically but, flags the errors in duty calculation in the login/screen of the Superintendent & the AC/DC, leading to duplication of avoidable work burden.Its an irony that when e-filing is compulsory, we are taking a printed copy of returns from the assessee and doing most of the scrutiny on paper. Also, its a duplication of work burden that the Superintendent & the AC/DC have to sit and sort out all the errors flagged by the ACES both electronically & on the paper. Day 5 We watched the presentation of Budget 2012-13 in the chamber of the DC.In the post-lunch session, we had a general discussion on the budget provisions impacting Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax. Also, by late afternoon, we received the DO Letters issued by the TRU. We had a general discussion about these with Raja Mohan. Also the revenue implications because of the increase in excise duty in gold for non-branded jewellery and also the increased import duty on gold.while some argued that it wud help reduce the flying away of precious foreign currency some were of the opinion that gold smuggling would again rise because of such a move.