Every year, the officers of the Customs & Central Excise Department are considered for grant of Presidential Award of Appreciation Certificate for ‘exceptionally meritorious service rendered  at the risk of life’ and for Presidential Award of Appreciation Certificate for ‘specially distinguished record of service’ on their achieving and maintaining excellence in  the  discharge of their  duties. These awards are announced on the eve of Republic Day.

This year, 40 officers have been selected for grant of Presidential Award of Appreciation Certificate for ‘Specially distinguished record of service’.

These officers have been selected on the basis of their exemplary and flawless performance in their respective field of services over the years. The awardees selected this year include the officers working as Commissioners/Directors/Additional Commissioners/Additional Directors, Deputy Directors, Superintendents/Slos, Assistant, Chief Accounts Officer, Sr. Private Secretary, Inspector, Driver who have been consistently committed to the department in various fields.

The aforesaid officer’s performance in various fields includes the prevention of smuggling of contrabands and Narcotics Drugs, detection of tax evasion and trade based money laundering, detection of foreign exchange violations by booking/arresting the offenders and seizing the smuggled goods, upgradation of anti-smuggling equipments and streamlining enforcement procedures etc in the department. Besides, many awardees have shown their brilliance and given commendable performance in other fields as varied as revenue mobilization, development of software for automation at Customs, Central Excise and Service tax formations, reducing litigations, international Conventions and Protocol relating to Trade Facilitation and enforcement, dispute resolution, effective defence of cases in the Tribunals and High Courts, preparing informative web sites for revenue officers as well as deft handling of administrative work.

The list of officers, along with their designation and their present place of posting, who have been selected for grant of the Presidential Award of Appreciation Certificate for ‘Specially distinguished record of service’, on the occasion of Republic Day, 2015 is given below:

COMMISSIONERS

1.   Dr. Awdhesh Kumar Singh, Commissioner, Large Tax Payers Unit, Chennai.

2.   Shri Alok Chopra, Commissioner, Central Excise, Thane-II.

DIRECTORS/ ADDITIONAL COMMISSIONERS/ ADDITIONAL DIRECTORS/ DEPUTY DIRECTORS

3.   Shri Rajesh Nandan Srivastava, Director, Narcotics  Control, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, North Block, New Delhi.

4.   Shri Dheeraj Rastogi, Additional Commissioner, Service Tax Audit, Commissionerate, Delhi.

5.   Shri Shafat Ahmad Usmani, Additional Director, DRI Hyderabad Zonal Unit, Hyderabad.

6.   Shri Chalamalla Venkat Reddy, Additional Director of Systems, Directorate General of Systems, Chennai.

7.   Smt. Sudha Koka, Additional Commissioner, Service Tax, Audit, Commissionerate, Bangalore.

8.   Shri Shailesh Kumar, Additional Director, DRI (Hqrs), New Delhi.

9.    Shri Pankaj Kumar Singh, Additional Commissioner, First Secretary (Economic), Embassy of India, Kathmandu, Nepal.

10.  Shri Giridhar Gopalkrishna Pai, Director, Tax Research Unit, CBEC, North Block, New Delhi.

11.  Shri V. Nagendra Rao, Joint Commissioner, Commissionerate of Customs  (Chennai-11), Chennai.

12.  Shri Ravindra Singh Bhati, Deputy Director, DRI, Mumbai Zonal Unit, Nhava Sheva Regional Unit, Mumbai.

13.   Dr. Sudesh Kumar Sheoran, Deputy Director, DGCE1 (Hqrs), New Delhi.

14.   Shri Jitendra Pal Singh, Assistant Director, Directorate of Enforcement (Hqrs), New Delhi.

15.   Shri Leo John Ilango, Assistant Commissioner, Directorate General of Vigilance,   SZU, Chennai.

16.   Shri Rajendrakumar Shantilal Raithatha, Assistant Commissioner, Commissionerate  of Cennal Excise and Customs, Rajkot, Ahmedabad Zone.

17.   Shri Manoj Kumar, Assistant Director, Directorate of Enforcement, Eastern Region, Kolkata.

SUPERINTENDENTS/SENIOR INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS

18.   Shri Dipankar Baneijee, Superintendent, CenDal Bureau of Narcotics, Kolkata.

19.   Shri Shrikant Patankar, Senior fntelligence Officer, DGCEI, Regional Unit, Indore.

20.   Shri A. Jagannadha Prasad, Superintendent, Central Excise & Customs (Anti-Evasion), Tirupati Commissionerate,Tirupati.

21.   Shri Rajesh Sharma, Superintendent, Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate, Delhi.

22.   Shri Rajendra Singh L Pathak, Superintendent, Commissionerate of Central Excise  & Customs (Ahmadabad-I),  Ahmedabad.

23.   Shri R. Ravichandran, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGCEI (Hqrs), New Delhi.

24.   Shri Prcm Chand Jain, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGCEI, Zonal Unit, Ahmedabad.

25.   Shri Suman Kumar Gangopadhyay, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI, Kolkata Zonal  Unit, Kolkata.

26.  Shri Krishnakumar B. Menon, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI, Mumbai Zonal Unit, Mumbai.

27.  Shri Gavin Jude D’Mello, Superintendent, Division-Ill, Commissionerate of Service  Tax, (Mumbai-I), Mumbai.

28.  Shri Mahesh Chowdhary, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGCEI, Zonal Unit, Ahmedabad.

29.  Shri Vitobh Shetty, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGCEI, Regional Unit, Goa.

30.  Shri Sunil Joshi, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGCEI (Hqrs), New Delhi.

31.  Shri B. Shridhar, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI, Bangalore Zonal Unit, Bangalore.

32.  Shri Nagendra Kumar Jha, Superintendent (Anti-Evasion), Service Tax  Commissionerate, Delhi-11.

33.  Shri N.S. Dev, Superintendent, Commissionerate of Customs, Cochin.

34.   Shri Sunil Shankar Yadav, Superintendent, Service Tax Cell, Satara Division, Kolhapur Commissionerate, Kolhapur.

35.   Shri Sandeep Thapliyal, Superintendent, Commissionerate of Central Excise & Customs, Meerut.

36.   Shri Shailendra Rammanohar Singh, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI, Mumbai Zonal Unit, Mumbai.

INSPECTOR

37.  Shri Rideep Hazarika, Inspector, Tax Recovery Cell, Customs Division, Customs (Prey.) Commissionerate, Guwahati.

ASSISTANT CHIEF ACCOUNT OFFICER/SR. PRIVATE SECRETARY

38.   Shri Kotekar Sheik Abdul Kareem, Assistant Chief Accounts Officer, Commissionerate of Customs, Mangalore.

39.   Smt. K. Savithri, Senior Private Secretary to Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Chennai Zone.

DRIVER

40.   Shri Jagbir Singh Pundir, Driver GR-I, DRI (Hqrs.), New Delhi.

Presidential Award recognition for specially distinguished service affirms sustained excellence in customs and enforcement functions. Granting of Presidential Award of Appreciation Certificate for 'Specially distinguished record of service' recognises sustained exemplary performance by officers across ranks in Customs, Central Excise and Directorate of Enforcement. Selection is based on consistent flawless performance in prevention of smuggling and narcotics, detection of tax evasion and trade based money laundering, investigation of foreign exchange violations, enforcement upgrades, revenue mobilization, automation initiatives, litigation reduction and effective dispute resolution.