26th ITEF conference from May 14 in Shillong

Shillong, May 11 (UNI) The 26th Circle Conference of the Income Tax Employees Federation(ITEF) would be held here at the State Central Library Auditorium from May 14.

Meghalaya Chief Minister D D Lapang would inaugurate the three-day-long conference, ITEF officials said here today.

About 200 delegates from from 21 centres of NE and top officials would participate in this programme.

Senior Chief Commissioner of the Union Government D K Das would be the Chief Guest and Commissioner of Income Tax H Raikhan would be the Guest of Honour at the conference.

President of the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers S K Vyas, President of the ITEF V R S Krishna and Joint Secretary of the ITEF P B Ramchandran would address the opening session.

The federation leaders informed the media that the Income Tax(IT) department was facing shortage of manpower due to downsizing policy of the Centre, which indirectly hampered the revenue collection.

The ITEF would discuss various problems and adopt a resolution in the conference.

They also pointed out that the recruitment centre was located only at Delhi, thus depriving the local youths of the opportunity, adding that many employees recruited at Delhi did not come to NE and at present about 200 clerical posts were vacant in the region.

ITEF leaders stated that a large portion of the revenue collected by the IT department was pumped back to the state. He cited example of Meghalaya, which received Rs 68 crore for development in the last fiscal.

They advocated that the money collected by the IT department should be spent for development purposes only. Unfortunately, on many occasions, the money was spent elsewhere according to the 'whims' of the political leaders.

When asked about the negligible IT raids in the state, they said local indigenous people could not be nabbed by the IT department and businessmen from outside were taking advantage through fake transactions to avoid taxes. They urged the media to highlight such cases so as to enable the department to collect more revenue.

UNI