The Union finance ministry has issued a number of corrigenda (corrections) and amendments to the excise and customs notifications issued on Budget Day. Such amendments happen every year but this year there were more mistakes than usual. The officials involved have to work in secrecy and seem to get into some kind of stress, failing to draft error-free notifications. One way to reduce the problem is to issue only those notifications that need to be issued on Budget Day.
This year, 15 notifications on excise tariff, 16 excise non–tariff, 15 on customs tariff and four customs non-tariff notifications were issued. To correct errors in the excise notifications alone, within three days, two corrigenda to the tariff notifications and two amendments to non-tariff notifications were issued. As more mistakes in excise tariff rates came to light, five more corrigenda and three more amending notifications followed. Similarly, the excise non-tariff and customs tariff and non-tariff notifications also required numerous corrections — these included corrections to mistakes made while correcting earlier mistakes.
Some corrections/amendments were made almost two weeks after B-Day. Some were made only with prospective effect. For example, the effective excise duty rate for specified petroleum products was wrongly given as 14 per cent+Rs 15 per litre in the notification dated March 17. The amendment on March 30 gives the correct rate at 14 per cent, but with prospective effect, making oil companies pay an additional Rs 15 per litre on specified items from March 17 to 30.
Primarily, the problem of defective notifications seems one of competence of the officials concerned. The problem seems to worsen when the finance ministry tries to make Budget Day a big event when several changes take place in the legal dispensations, besides changes in duty rates. In trying to draft notifications for more and more changes, the officials come under more stress than they would if they had to only deal with the changes in tariff rates that have to be necessarily be made on B-Day.
The Central Board of Excise and Customs could try to see what notifications have to be necessarily issued on B-Day and which ones need not. The tariff notifications have to necessarily follow the announcements by the minister but many other changes in existing notifications or Rules need not be made the same day. For example, significant changes were made to the Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004, on B-Day but these need not have been made on the day. They could have been made earlier or later.
Similarly, amendments were made to the Customs (Import of Goods at Concessional Rate of Duty for Manufacture of Excisable Goods) Rules, 1996, making provision for re-export of unutilised goods and prescribing quarterly instead of monthly return. This amending notification has nothing to do with the Budget but, quite unnecessarily, was issued on B-Day. Similarly, amendments to the Central Excise (Removal of Goods at Concessional Rate of Duty for Manufacturer of Excisable Goods), 2001, and several notifications merely changing the reference of ‘Section 11AB’ to ‘Section AA’ in some other legal provisions or notifications were made on B-Day but these had nothing to do with the Budget.