At a time when the government is making multiple moves with an eye on cooling down soaring prices, it is ironic that the government?s own expert body on all pricing matters, the Tariff Commission is now completely headless. This is likely to affect the pace of work at the Commission, currently working on several important government projects including the fertiliser pricing policy and port tariffs.
For over a year and a half, the government hasn?t appointed a chairman for the independent expert body since the previous chief Charu Sheela Sohoney retired. On Monday, the tenure of AP Sharma, who had been officiating as the member secretary, also came to an end?meaning there is no guiding force for the nearly 100-strong staff at the New Delhi-based Commission.
An official told FE that the expert panel is working on about 25 assignments from different government departments. In the absence of a chairman, the secretary for the department of industrial policy and promotion, Ajay Shankar, is responsible for the Commission?s activities.
The Tariff Commission was set up in 1997 to function as an independent expert committee to recommend appropriate tariff levels keeping in mind the larger economic interests of the country. In 1999, the Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices (BICP) was merged with the Tariff Commission to provide in-house support to the panel with its accumulated multi-disciplinary expertise of economists, scientists, engineers, cost and chartered accountants and statisticians.
However, the Tariff Commission is a reincarnation of much older bodies. To supersede the Tariff Board set up by the Britishers before independence, the Tariff Commission was created by an act of Parliament in 1951. Its primary role then was to ensure protection for industry in India , by adjusting customs duties or acting against dumping of goods in the domestic market.
The Commission was originally wound up in 1976 and its work was passed on the BICP, set up under the Department of Industrial Development in 1970.
Its role was to advise government on a continuing basis on industrial costs and prices and on issues relevant to cost reduction, improvement in industrial efficiency and pricing of industrial products.