With a view to providing better facilities to industrialists, the Central excise and service tax (CE&ST) commissionerate here has proposed to increase the number of CE&ST divisions in the state from five to seven, with the existing Patna CE&ST division segregated into three divisions besides restructuring the geographical jurisdictions of four other divisions keeping in mind the organisational functioning.

While inviting suggestions from members of the Bihar Industries Association (BIA) on Saturday evening, Patna CE&ST commissioner Shashank Priya said the rejig is a part of reorganization in the institution across the country to manage the increasing workload. "Since, Patna division with its nine ranges has the largest jurisdiction in the commissionerate here, we plan to split it into three - the central excise (CE) division — Patna I, the CE&ST division — Patna II and a service tax division," he said.

He elaborated that CE Patna I will comprise Bankipore, Patliputra, Digha and Phulwarisharif ranges, which will cater to only central excise collection; CE&ST Patna II will consist of Patna City, Fatuha, Begusarai and Barauni ranges and will cover both central excise and service tax collection; and the service tax division will be for collection of service tax of CE Patna I areas and some parts of CE&ST Patna II.

The CE&ST Patna commissionerate has not proposed any major changes in its Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga and Bhagalpur divisions, except for some geographical reorganization considering people's convenience. "The Darbhanga division was earlier called Laheriasarai, but we plan to rename it as our office is in Darbhanga. Otherwise, there are small changes such as inclusion of Kishanganj in Darbhanga division from Bhagalpur etc," the commissioner said.

The BIA members, who were given a copy of the draft trade notice in advance, also came up with various suggestions which, the CE&ST officials said, were likely to be included in the final proposal. The Bihta, Hajipur and parts of Ara range were sought to be attached with any of the Patna division as most of the administrative offices of industries in these areas were located in Patna. It was also recommended that Purnia be joined with the Darbhanga division along with Kishanganj while East and West Champaran could be removed from Darbhanga and linked with the Muzaffarpur division.

A one taxpayer-one table formula was also proposed by the BIA members. who said the current one-stop system was convenient but if the restructuring is imperative, then at least both CE and ST collection should be ensured at one place. "With the cadre restructuring in the pipeline, a number of new posts will be created in the organization and we will be better prepared to implement the goods and services tax (GST) as and when it is enforced," Priya said.