History of Shillong Central Excise Commissionerate

COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE

During the days of the British Raj, the present North-Eastern Region was mainly divided into the province  of Assam consisting of the whole of the Brahmaputra Valley, the Barak valley, the North Cachar Hills, the Khasi Jaintia Garo Hills(Meghalaya), the Lushai Hills(Mizoram) and the Naga Hills (Nagaland ) .The whole of the present state of Arunachal Pradesh was then known as the North East Frontier Agency(NEFA). The two princely states Manipur and Tripura had a different administrative setup of their own. There was very little developmental work except building of highway linking some of the important frontier headquarters and that too only because of the compulsion an account of Japanese invasion during Second World Warsuch as the Stealwell road in upper Assam going right up to the Southern Chinese Border and N.H. 39 running through the border town of Moreh right upto Mandalay in Central Burma.

The North East Region has one common climatic characteristic i.e. heavy rainfall during monsoon (Cherrapunjee in Meghalaya records the highest rainfall in the world). The Hill region has thick tropical forest of teak, Sal, pine, cane and bamboo etc.The Brahmaputra Valley and Barak Valley consist of alluvial plain where rice is cultivated as the staple crop.

                 In 1821, the first discovery of wild tea plant was made by Robert Bruce. In 1835, the first Tea Garden was opened at Lakhimpur, Assam. By 1854 more areas under the district of Darang, Kamrup, Nowgong and Sibsagar where brought under Tea Plantation. In 1855, wild tea plant was discovered in Cachar district and plantation started. By 1903, there were more than 400 tea gardens in the North East Region which gave employment to 846 Europeans and 4,99,000 natives and total production of tea was estimated at 14,50,00,000 pounds. Today there are over 650 gardens in the whole of North East and the prominent tea companies are George Williamsons Magors, the TATA Tea Company and Good-Ricks.

                In 1868, Crude Oil was discovered in Upper Assam Region and in 1893 a small experimental refinery was set up in Digboi. The Assam Oil Company was formed in 1889 and refinery was made full-fledged employing 10 Europeans and 509 natives. The total output in 1903 was 63 tons of Candles, 573 tons of Paraffin wax, 12,00,000 gallons of kerosene oil and 80,000 gallons of other oils. The present Digboi Oil Refinery was commissioned in 1901 with the capacity of 0.5 million MT and thereafter under the modernization scheme in 1996 the capacity was increased 0.65 million MT. Apart from this refinery there are other three refineries viz. BRPL at Bongaigaon, Noonmati Oil Refinery at Guwahati commissioned in 1961 having capacity of 0.85 million MT and Numaligarh Refinery established in 2000 has a capacity of 3 million MT. The four oil refineries are fed with crude oil from O.N.G.C, Sibsagar and Oil India, Duliajan Oil fields in Upper Assam. The crude oil is sent through 16" diameters pipelines from Duliajan and Nazira Oil fields to these refineries and even upto Barauni Refinery in Bihar covering a distance of 1157 Km long pipelines.

                 After the partition of India in 1947, it was felt necessary to have Land Customs Station all along the Indo-Pakistan border( now Indo-Bangladesh) to regulate border trade and also check smuggling of goods from across the border. Due to smuggling of foreign goods and gold in particular from Burma and erstwhile East Pakistan it was necessary to create Customs Preventive Post at Moreh (Manipur), Champai (Mizoram) and all along the Indo-Pakistan border to prevent smuggling of foreign goods.

                 Therefore, in view of the growing revenue tea and oil and also to contain smuggling activities in the Indo-Burma and Indo-Pakistan border, the need for creation of a separate Customs & Central Excise Collectorate was felt.

                  The Shillong Customs & Central Excise Commissionerate ( formerly called 'Collectorate') was formerly created on 01.04.1947 with the Commissioner, Calcutta having the additional charge of the commissionerate. In the year 1948, the Commissionerate was made of Calcutta with the posting of Deputy Commissioner to discharge the work of the Commissionerate. In March, 1951 a Commissioner was posted to Shillong Commissionerate, which, in a way, heralded the beginning of a full-fledged Commissionerate . The territorial jurisdiction of the Commissionerate comprises of the seven North Eastern states. Initially the Commissionerate had one division namely Jorhat. In 1954, Silchar division was created , in 1966 Dibrugarh division and Guwahati division was created and in 1971 Dhubri, Tezpur and Agartala divisions  were created . In 1980, three more divisions viz. Digboi, Tinsukia, Karimganj were created and in 1990 Imphal division was created out of Silchar and Jorhat divisions.

                 The Commissionerate was combined for both Customs and Central Excise. In 1993, the Commissionerate was bifurcated and a separate Customs Commissionerate came into existence . Four separate Customs Divisions were created in 1993 namely -Aizawl, Dimapur, Guwahati and Shillong in addition to the already existing divisions namely- Agartala, Karimganj, and Imphal. In November,2002 a new Customs Division namely Dhubri was created.

                 With effect from 1st November 2002, Shillong Central Excise Commissionerate has been bifurcated into two Commissionerates  namely, Shillong and Dibrugarh Commissionerates after the all India Customs and Central Excise Cadre Restructuring was implemented. Shillong Central Excise had five divisions including the newly created Division at Nagaon and Dibrugarh Commissionerate had also five divisions. Chief Commissionerate of Central Excise & Customs, Shillong  Zone had two Central Excise and one Customs Commissionerates.

                  With effect from 1st December 2008, Shillong Central Excise Commissionerate has been further bifurcated into two Commissionerates viz. Shillong and Guwahati Commissionerates. At present, Shillong Central Excise has four divisions viz. Shillong, Silchar, Nagaon and  newly created Division Agartala which was earlier a Range under Silchar Central Excise Division. Guwahati Commissionerate has five divisions viz. Guwahati Central Excise, Guwahati Service Tax, Dhubri(curved out from Shillong Commissonerate), Tezpur(curved out from Dibrugarh Commissionerate) and newly created Itanagar Division. Dibrugarh Commissionerate has now four divisions viz. Dibrugarh, Digboi, Jorhat & Tinsukia. Now, Chief Commissionerate of Central Excise & Customs, Shillong Zone has three Central Excise and one Customs Commissionerates.

               The detailed list of Divisions and its Ranges of three Commissionerates can be viewed in the link 'Jurisdiction'