LAHORE: The Punjab chief secretary has recently approved five major proposals for restructuring of the the excise & taxation department which is currently facing shortage of manpower and logistics besides not having legal and audit wings.

At a recently held meeting with the department officials, it was proposed to set up a legal cell at the director general`soffice for which a senior law officer, two additional law officers, three law officers, 11 law officers in as many directorates, four assistants, four junior clerks and four Naib Qasids would be required.

Another proposal was to establish an internal audit wing against the existence of a smallsized HR deficient IA wing with the requirement of one director audit (at secretary office), two deputy directors (in DG office), three auditors (in DG of fice), resident auditors (11 at divisional auditors) and four Naib Qasids.

The approval was also accorded to reorganisation on functional lines and creation of two separatewings taxation and excise & narcotics for which allocation of budget (establishment of excise police stations) and current expenditure is required in addition to creation of separate attached department for excise & narcotics E&N) control wing, four E&T officers and as many assistant E&T officers, inspectors, assistants, junior clerks, Naib Qasids and eight double-cabin pick-ups for police stations.

Creation of E&N wings has already been approved by the provincial narcotics control committee and rules of business have been amended.

The chief secretary also approved establishment of achemical lab for 14 distilleries and opium factory for which one lab technician, two lab assistants and Rs500,000 for the procurement of equipment would be required.

The department had floated another proposal for the formation of an appellate body keeping in view the number of pendingappealsinPunjab andforthe purpose one commissioner appeals, two deputy commissioners, two junior clerks and as many Naib Qasids would be required.

The number of pending appeals in Punjab is currently around 2,470 and assessment officers are also deciding appeals which isconflict of interest.

However, an important proposal of biometric, photographic, Q-metric registration and postregistration of motor vehicles in Punjab integrated with Nadra was not given approval for which an amount of Rs8.5 million is required.

Presently registration and postregistration transactions are carried out without these facilities and presence of seller/purchaser is not mandatory resulting in dispute over change in ownership of vehicles.

Finally, another proposal for the establishment of the state-ofthe-artcollection centres at divisional headquarters in Punjabon public-private partnership mode (eight at divisional headquarters and four at Lahore) is also under-consideration for which additional funds are not required.

The collection charges through PPRA shall be determined which will be borne by the assessee/applicant to the investor for providing structure and other facilities. Human resource will be provided by the E&T department.

Presently no such facility is available to provide better service delivery to taxpayers as existing official buildings are not enough to cater the future demands. FAISAL ALI GHUMMAN