VCES Grand Success

Service Tax - VCES - A Grand Success - Excellent Performance by officers? 

THOUGH the Final figure is not yet officially out, the Government is said to have collected nearly 8000 Crores under the Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme 2013. But you know what their target was? A measly 1050 Crores!

As per their "Results Framework Document" 2013-14 (RFD), if they collected 550 Crores in 2013-14, their performance is excellent.

What is RFD?

The Prime Minister approved the outline of a "Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES) for Government Departments". Under PMES, each department is required to prepare a Results-Framework Document (RFD).

An RFD provides a summary of the most important results that a department/ministry expects to achieve during the financial year. This document has two main purposes: (a) move the focus of the department from process-orientation to result-orientation, and (b) provide an objective and fair basis to evaluate department's overall performance at the end of the year.

So, our CBEC also sincerely prepared the RFD in which on page 9, they have shown VCES target for 2013-14 as Rs. 500 Crores and the projected value for 2014-15 as Rs. 550 Crores (maybe they hope to get some interest on delayed payments) - So, all they targeted was Rs. 1050 Crores. As with all Government statistics, which nobody perhaps reads, this report is also not without its contradictions. In page 9, their target for 2013-14 is Rs.500 Crores, while in page 4 it is 550 Crores - but what is after all 50 Crores when they have collected nearly 8000 Crores?

Thankfully, many of the officers were not aware the target as mentioned in the RFD - otherwise they would have closed the VCES counters much before the December 31 deadline.

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