SEVOTTAM Implementation in CBIC is a measure to meet the aspirations of taxpayers. As an organization into delivery of public service, it is our duty to meet certain expectations of our stakeholders.
SEVOTTAM is a combination of two words, SEVA and UTTAM. It means Excellence in Service. SEVOTTAM symbolizes the Government’s intent to move from ‘administration’ mindset to ‘service orientation’ in delivery of public services. It is a standardized Service Delivery Excellence Model based on the Indian Standards – IS 15700:2005 developed by the Bureau of Indian Standards, which is popularly known as “SEVOTTAM”.
SEVOTTAM in CBIC Parlance
The CBEC is committed to excellence in taxpayer services. We have a large taxpayer base of service providers, manufacturers, dealers, importers and exporters. While some of our large taxpayers are sophisticated and have access to a dedicated service delivery channel in form of LTU (Large Taxpayer Unit), we need to cater to other taxpayers as well as daily international travellers. This wide range of clientele segmentation entails that we have a standard service delivery system that caters to the need of all, based on transparency, accountability, reliability, responsiveness and empathy in taxpayer functions of the CBEC.
CBEC has taken concrete steps to improve its public delivery systems. We have revised our Citizens’ Charter with inputs from key stakeholders for delivery norms for specific services thus aligning it to what taxpayers want. We have adopted CPGRAMS (Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System) at all India level as a robust grievance redress system. We have developed delivery capability at field offices to meet stringent norms laid down in IS 15700:2005
and designed a Service Quality Manual on how to deliver quality in taxpayer services as per industry’s best practices. We aim at providing taxpayer services in terms of timelines in delivery, single window facility, trade facilitation and proactive feedback collection.
Key Features of SEVOTTAM
# SEVOTTAM is the Service Delivery Excellence Model adopted by the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC).
# CBEC has 60 field offices as on 31.03.2016 that are BIS 15700 certified, positioning it as a leading organization committed to delivering promises made in the Citizens’ Charter.
# More field offices are in the process of getting IS 15700:2005 certification.
Elaborate View on SEVOTTAM
SEVOTTAM provides an assessment-improvement frame-work to bring about excellence in public service delivery. The model works as an evaluation mechanism to assess the efficiency of internal processes and their impact on the quality of service delivery.
The SEVOTTAM model seeks to assess an organization on: (i) implementation of the Citizens’ Charter; (ii) implementation of grievance redress system; and (iii) service delivery capability.This assessment is made through three modules.
The first module requires effective implementation of Citizens’ Charter, thereby opening up a channel for receiving citizens’ inputs on the way in which organizations determine service delivery requirements. Citizens’ Charter publicly declare the citizens’ entitlements thereby making citizens better informed and hence empowering them to demand better services.
The second module requires a good grievance redress system operating to maximise the citizen’s satisfaction with how the organization responds to complaints/ grievances, irrespective of the final decision.
The third module postulates that an organization can achieve excellence in service delivery only if it is efficiently managing the key ingredients for good service delivery and building its own capacity to continuously improve service delivery.
CBEC journey towards SEVOTTAM
CBEC has taken concrete steps towards implementation of SEVOTTAM in its field formations. We have worked on each SEVOTTAM module to assess ourselves, identify gaps and made improvements. Accordingly we have –
a) Revised Citizens’ Charter:
A key requirement for effective taxpayer services is to
design an effective Citizens’ Charter, one that is easy to implement as well as able to
meet the aspirations of the stakeholders. This is the key question that any organization delivering services needs to answer. How do we balance the stakeholders’ expectations with the resources available to deliver?
CBEC has a highly knowledgeable taxpayer base consisting of manufacturers, service
providers, importers and exporters. They expect us to be dynamic in policy making as per the changing economic scenario. As an indirect levy that gets passed on to the next consumer, we play a key role in the product and services price in the market. Any delay on CBEC part could impact increase the cost of production as well as the cost of supply chain.
In order to meet this expectation, we worked with the taxpayer associations like CII,
FICCI, PHDCCI and FIEO to prioritize top ten service functions where the associations need standards to ensure timeliness of delivery. This selective promise of the priority services allows us to focus our resources in key areas for effective implementation as well as for meeting the priorities of the taxpayers.
We intend to review our Citizens’ Charter at regular intervals to keep abreast with the changing taxpayers needs.
b) Implement CPGRAMS as a Robust Grievance Redress System:
A robust grievance redress system is essential to ensure delivery of promises made in the Citizens’ Charter. The system needs to ensure accountability as well as transparency.
In order to have such a system, we adopted CPGRAMS, the grievance redress systems of DARPG (Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances) after having carefully reviewed the existing grievance redress mechanism. CPGRAMS provides the in-built benefit of improving grievance redress, whenever a new version is launched by the DARPG. Further CPGRAMS allows us the benefit of backward integration with other governmental organizations in case it is required.
CPGRAMS although is still an IT system that needs proactive response from the field offices to deliver effectively. So the senior field officers have been brought on board by creating a sense of accountability towards grievance redress. From time to time, senior officers are sensitized about the need for effective and prompt functioning of the grievance redress mechanism as a significant component for delivering quality taxpayer services. We have Public Grievance Officers appointed in each field Commissionerate to attend to public grievances.
The grievance redress is monitored at various levels to ensure continued efficacy.
Norms of acknowledging complaints within 48 hours of receipt and attempting to provide final replies within 30 working days have been set in Citizens’ Charter for prompt response to public grievances.
Our public grievance redress system has improved our accessibility to the taxpayer. A taxpayer could redress his grievance concerning any of our field offices across the
country through a common online portal. We have a high grievance redress rate.
c) Developed service delivery capability at Commissionerate
Creation of delivery infrastructure to meet promises made in the Citizens’ Charter is essential to meet and sustain excellence in services. Considering the enormity of the task, it was decided by CBEC to do it in phases. Accordingly in Phase-I four formations were identified by the Core Group / Implementation Committee in its meeting held on 16th June, 2009 as Pilot Commissionerates for implementation of Sevottam. Based on pilots’ experience, the delivery requirements have been standardized through a Service Quality Manual (SQM) for replicating capability in at all the field formations.
After internal assessment of Service delivery with time norms at all the pilot
Commissionerates and other parameters of single window, taxpayer facilitation, feedback mechanism & grievance redress, BIS awarded the Pilot Commissionerates Sevottam Certificate License No. CRO/SQSC/L-8000035 as per IS 15700:2005 on 4th November, 2010.
These pilot offices are:
- Office of the Directorate General of Inspection as apex office representing the
Central Board of Excise & Customs, - Office of the Commissioner of Central Excise Delhi-I as unit office for Central
Excise revenue system, - Office of the Commissioner of Import & General Delhi as unit office for
Customs revenue stream, and - Office of Commissioner of Service Tax Delhi as unit office for Service Tax
revenue stream.
Capacity Building to Meet SEVOTTAM Objectives
A key challenge for us to expand taxpayer services is to bring an attitudinal change in
departmental officers’ towards taxpayers. By nature of our job of tax collection, we carry a noncozy relationship with our taxpayers. Therefore, we need a definite plan to emphasize our role not only as a tax collector but also as a tax facilitator.
In order to bring about the change in the officers’ attitude, we formed a team of senior officers who visited the different field offices across India and sensitized them about what the department wants to accomplish through the Citizens’ Charter.
Further, we developed a standardized training module through our training academy NACEN, to train field officers about specific steps they need to take. In addition, to bridge the gap between the requirements of Citizens’ Charter and field level implementation, CBEC developed a Service Quality Manual (SQM) through a pilot rollout of taxpayer services. The manual has set standard operating procedures for each of the priority service and allows each field formation to reorient its local services as per standards. This standardization has allowed us to simplify the service delivery processes as well as identify the key resources needed to accomplish the task as per taxpayer expectations.
We have also taken steps for providing the priority services on our national technology platforms, ICES and ACES. Presently, five out of nine priority services are available online to the taxpayers and provide the same level of reliability and responsiveness to taxpayers across India.
Training on Sevottam are being organized by BIS/NACEN for sensitizing the officers of Customs & Central Excise.
Current coverage of SEVOTTAM
The list of Sevottam certified field formations as on 31.03.2016 is as under:-
| Central Excise | Customs | Service Tax |
|
1. DGICCE (Now DGPM) 2. Delhi-I 3. Hydrabad-III 4. Ahmedabad-I 5. Ahmedabad-III 6. Rajkot 7. Mumbai-III 8. Belapur 9. Delhi-II 10. Gurgaon-I 11. Rohtak 12. Jaipur-I 13. Bangalore-I 14. Bhopal 15. Chandigarh-I 16. Thiruvananthapuram 17. Coimbatore 18. Hyderabad-II 19. Udaipur (Erstwhile Jaipur-II) 20. Siliguri 21. Allahabad 22. Lucknow 23. Mangalore 24. Meerut 25. Aurangabad 26. Pune-I 27. Pune-III 28. Guwahati 29. Shillong 30. Surat-I 31. Surat-II 32. Visakhapatnam-I 33. Ahmedabad-II 34. Salem 35. Hyderabad-I 36. Kanpur 37. Vadodara-I 38. Pune-II |
1. Delhi Customs (ACC Import) 2. Mumbai-I (Airport), Zone-III 3. Delhi (ICD-TKD-Import) 4. Mumbai (Import-I), Zone-I 5. Mumbai (Export-I), Zone-I 6. Mumbai General, Zone-I 7. Kolkata (Port) 8. Ahmedabad 9. Kandla 10. Cochin Customs 11. Delhi Customs (IGI Airport) 12. Amritsar (Preventive) 13. Lucknow 14. Jamnagar (Preventive) 15. Delhi Customs (Air Cargo Export) 16. Pune Customs 17. Customs Mumbai (Export-II) Zone-I 18. Chennai-II 19. Chennai-III 20. Chennai-V 21. Chennai-VI 22. Kolkata (Airport & Air Cargo Complex |
1. Delhi-I ST |
Source: CBIC.GOV.IN