• Notification Date: 26-11-2021
• Notification No: 57/2021-22

Gujrat Had CCIT-TDS For Only 6 Days

Income Tax Gujarat on Wednesday received three full-time Chief Commissioners, filling posts that were vacant and run by in-charge officers since July. Even after the three appointments, Gujarat still does not have the full panel of eight senior-most I-T officers.

Banwarilal Meena was appointed CCIT-Rajkot, Kavita Bhatnagar was appointed CCIT-Surat and SL Meena was appointed CCIT-ReAC Ahmedabad. All three are newly promoted officers.

Rajeev Agarwal, who was posted as CCIT-ReAC Vadodara on July 26, 2021, was also given additional charge of ReAC Ahmedabad. He will now relinquish that charge.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has, once again, left the post of the Chief Commissioner for Tax Deducted at Source (CCIT-TDS) vacant in Gujarat.

In fact, in the last 13 months, the Income Tax department in Gujarat has had a full-time CCIT-TDS for a grand total of exactly six days.

The office of the CCIT-TDS in Ahmedabad got vacated, tragically, after serving officer Debashish Roy Choudhary passed away due to Covid in October 2020.

No full-time CCIT-TDS was appointed and Dr Rananjay Singh, serving as the CCIT-ReAC Vadodara, was given charge of TDS after Roy’s untimely demise. Dr Singh superannuated from the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) on June 30, 2021.

Ravindra I Patel, serving as CCIT-Rajkot, was transferred as CCIT-TDS in an order on July 26, 2021. The catch was he retired from service on July 31, 2021, having served as CCIT-TDS, for only six days.

In the same order on July 26, Satinder Singh Rana was appointed CCIT-1 Ahmedabad and given additional charge of CCIT-Rajkot and CCIT-Surat which were already vacant. He took on additional charge of CCIT-TDS six days later, essentially handling four offices at the same time.

While Rana was relieved of Surat and Rajkot charges on Wednesday (November 24), with officers being appointed to these posts, he continues to hold the charge of CCIT-TDS.

Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) collection in Gujarat stood at Rs 23,326 crore for FY 2020-21 against Rs 22,140.8 crore in FY 2019-20.

Sources said post the second quarter of this financial year, TDS collection in Gujarat is 35% up over the same time period last year.