Every year, the Officers of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) 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 the Republic Day. This year, three (3) officers have been selected for grant of Presidential Awards of Appreciation Certificate for ‘Exceptionally Meritorious Service at the Risk of Life’ and forty three (43) Officers have been selected for grant of Presidential Awards of Appreciation Certificate for ‘Specially Distinguished Record of Service’.

This year, Awardees include the officers at the rank of Principal Chief Commissioner (1), Principal Commissioners (2), Commissioner (2), Additional Commissioners (8), Deputy/Assistant Commissioners (6), Superintendents (17) and others (10) , The list of Officers, along with the designations and their present places of posting, is given below:

A. Exceptionally Meritorious Service rendered at the Risk of Life

1. Shri Afaq Ahmad Giri, Assistant Director, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Regional Unit, Jammu;

2. Shri Lalthanliana, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI Regional Unit, Aizawl;

3. Shri Ranjeet Singh, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI Regional Unit, Jammu;

B. Specially Distinguished Record of Service

1. Shri Bankey Behari Agrawal, Principal Chief Commissioner, Central Goods and Services Tax & Central Excise (CGST & CEX) and Customs Zone, Hyderabad;

2. Shri Pramod Kumar Singh, Principal Commissioner, CGST & CEX Zone, Jaipur;

3. Shri Ashish Varma, Principal Additional Director General, DRI Zonal Unit, Ahmedabad;

4. Shri Vimal Kumar Srivastava, Additional Director General, National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics (NACIN), Faridabad;

5. Shri Subhash Agrawal, Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai–II Customs Zone, Mumbai;

6. Dr. Satish S. Dhavale, Additional Director, Risk Management Centre for Customs, Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management, Mumbai;

7. Shri Nagendra Kumar Mishra, Additional Commissioner, CGST & CEX Zone, Ranchi;

8. Shri Hardeep Batra, Additional Commissioner, World Customs Organisation Cell, CBIC, New Delhi;

9. Shri Sachin Jain, Additional Commissioner, CGST & CEX Zone, New Delhi;

10. Shri Rahul Ramesh Nangare, First Secretary, High Commission of India, London;

11. Shri Parmod Kumar, Additional Commissioner, Tax Research Unit, CBIC, New Delhi;

12. Ms. Sucheta Sreejesh, Additional Director, DRI Headquarters, New Delhi;

13. Shri Gauri Shankar Sinha, Director, Goods and Services Tax Council, New Delhi;

14. Shri Satish Pandurangarao Pattapu, Deputy Director, DRI Zonal Unit, Mumbai;

15. Shri Rajeev Kumar Arora, Assistant Commissioner, Directorate General of Taxpayer Services, New Delhi;

16. Shri Ashok Kumar Gautam, Assistant Director, Directorate General of Human Resource Development (DGHRD), New Delhi;

17. Shri S. Kalyan Iyer, Assistant Commissioner, Directorate General of Systems & Data Management, Chennai;

18. Shri Krishnamachari Srinivasan, Assistant Commissioner, CGST & CEX Zone, Chennai;

19. Shri Jitender Kumar Sharma, Superintendent, Directorate of Logistics, New Delhi;

20. Shri Vijay C. Bellary, Superintendent, CGST & CEX Zone, Bengaluru;

21. Shri Haresh G. Parecha, Superintendent, CGST & CEX Zone, Mumbai;

22. Shri Rakesh Bhargava, Senior Intelligence Officer, Directorate General of Goods & Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) Zonal Unit, Ludhiana;

23. Shri Ram Niwas, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGGI Zonal Unit, Chandigarh;

24. Shri R. Srivatsan, Superintendent, NACIN, Chennai;

25. Shri Vinod V. Pisharody, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI Zonal Unit, Mumbai;

26. Shri Krishnakant Gupta, Superintendent, Directorate General of Taxpayer Services (DGTS) Zonal Unit, Ahmedabad;

27. Shri Shasidharan, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI Zonal Unit, Cochin.

28. Shri Srusti Rameswara Baba, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGGI Zonal Unit, Pune;

29. Shri Dilip Singh Bisen, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGGI Zonal Unit, Mumbai;

30. Shri Somit Das, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI Zonal Unit, Kolkata;

31. Shri K. Amudhaganesh, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI Zonal Unit, Chennai;

32. Shri A Shanmugaraj, Senior Intelligence Officer, DRI Regional Unit, Coimbatore;

33. Shri Vijay Prakash Verma, Senior Intelligence Officer, DGGI Zonal Unit, Jaipur;

34. Shri Sanjeev Kumar Bhalla, Intelligence Officer, DRI Headquarters, New Delhi;

35. Shri Rohit Issar, Intelligence Officer, DGGI, New Delhi;

36. Ms. Hem Lata, Senior Private Secretary, DRI Headquarters, New Delhi;

37. Ms. Neerja Sharma, Senior Private Secretary, DGGI Headquarters, New Delhi;

38. Ms. Nita Chirag Shah, Senior Private Secretary, DRI Zonal Unit, Ahmedabad;

39. Ms. Radha Vijaykumar, Administrative Officer, DRI Zonal Unit, Chennai;

40. Shri Vinod Joshi, Tax Assistant, Tax Research Unit, CBIC, New Delhi;

41. Shri S. Nageswaran, Driver Special Grade, DGGI Headquarters, New Delhi;

42. Shri Jaspal Chauhan, Driver Grade-I, DRI Headquarters, New Delhi;

43. Shri M. Shanthaveerappa, Head Havaldar, DGGI Zonal Unit, Bengaluru.

These Officers have been selected on the basis of their exemplary and flawless performance and consistent commitment to the Department in their respective fields such as prevention of smuggling of contrabands and Narcotics Drugs, detection of tax evasion and trade based money laundering, audit, trade facilitation measures, up-gradation of infrastructure/ Anti-Smuggling equipment and streamlining enforcement procedures etc. Besides, many awardees have shown their brilliance and given laudable performance in other fields as varied as Tax Policy, Revenue Mobilization, Development of Software for automation of Customs, Central Excise/ Tax and CGST formations, reducing litigation and dispute resolution, effective defence of cases in the Tribunals and High Courts, capacity building and training as well as skilful handling of administrative work.

Presidential Awards recognize CBIC officers for exceptionally meritorious service and specially distinguished records, prompting formal departmental recognition. Grant of Presidential Awards recognizes CBIC officers under two categories: Exceptionally Meritorious Service Rendered at the Risk of Life for acts involving personal risk, and Specially Distinguished Record of Service for sustained excellence across enforcement, investigation, policy, administration, training and technical development. The announcement operationalizes these categories by listing selected officers across ranks and units, emphasizing merit-based recognition for contributions to anti-smuggling, narcotics interdiction, tax evasion detection, trade facilitation, infrastructure upgrades, automation and litigation management.