Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressing the gathering of tax enforcement officials after inaugurating the new Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Headquarters
| Photo Credit:
PTI
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked tax officials to ensure enforcement operations should be rooted not only in ‘Data but also in Dharma’.
Inaugurating the new headquarters of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Sitharaman said that in order to be effective enforcement agencies, all officers must embrace three key imperatives.
“Do not view enforcement and facilitation as opposing ends of the spectrum. Investigate holistically, keeping the big picture in focus, not merely chasing isolated infractions. Enforcement operations should be rooted not only in Data but also in Dharma,” she said.
DRI is the apex anti-smuggling agency of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC). She called it a key guardian of India’s economic frontiers, consistently countering smuggling, drugs trafficking, illicit trade and other threats and make sure that the nation is safe.
“We need to have greater awareness and more actionable intelligence. From the dump of data which arrives, it is important for agencies to be smart enough to see which information is actionable and which has to be taken up immediately,” she said.
The Minister asked the officers to follow the spirit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantras ‘Reform, Perform and Transform.’ She highlighted that DRI is among the select group of agencies which constitute a bulwark on India’s national security apparatus.
“As much as we speak about gold, narcotics is the biggest threat which has infiltrated into every State and even small town. Schools and colleges are the first victims. It is to be stopped by the DRI and then coordinated with the State police. We need to have greater coordination and greater understanding of the size as well as scope of the threat,” she said.
She also said that there should be a “more meaningful way” by which enforcement officers can act on the cache of data and intelligence inputs received by them, and better inter-agency coordination can help in optimising the time and effort to crack down on masterminds behind economic offences.
“It is important for agencies to be smart enough to see which (data) has got to be actionable and which has to be immediately taken up. So, there is that area which I would still call as a grey area,” Sitharaman said.
Asking the DRI officers to go after masterminds of crime, she said, “No good if you catch the small fish of fry. The bigger ones are the ones who are not being touched by many of our actions. We need to have the entire smuggling chain, entire nefarious operation chain, tracked and acted upon. It’s not easy, but we should show some tangible results on it,” the Minister said.
Published on June 3, 2025
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressing the gathering of tax enforcement officials after inaugurating the new Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Headquarters
| Photo Credit:
PTI
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked tax officials to ensure enforcement operations should be rooted not only in ‘Data but also in Dharma’.
Inaugurating the new headquarters of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Sitharaman said that in order to be effective enforcement agencies, all officers must embrace three key imperatives.
“Do not view enforcement and facilitation as opposing ends of the spectrum. Investigate holistically, keeping the big picture in focus, not merely chasing isolated infractions. Enforcement operations should be rooted not only in Data but also in Dharma,” she said.
DRI is the apex anti-smuggling agency of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC). She called it a key guardian of India’s economic frontiers, consistently countering smuggling, drugs trafficking, illicit trade and other threats and make sure that the nation is safe.
“We need to have greater awareness and more actionable intelligence. From the dump of data which arrives, it is important for agencies to be smart enough to see which information is actionable and which has to be taken up immediately,” she said.
The Minister asked the officers to follow the spirit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantras ‘Reform, Perform and Transform.’ She highlighted that DRI is among the select group of agencies which constitute a bulwark on India’s national security apparatus.
“As much as we speak about gold, narcotics is the biggest threat which has infiltrated into every State and even small town. Schools and colleges are the first victims. It is to be stopped by the DRI and then coordinated with the State police. We need to have greater coordination and greater understanding of the size as well as scope of the threat,” she said.
She also said that there should be a “more meaningful way” by which enforcement officers can act on the cache of data and intelligence inputs received by them, and better inter-agency coordination can help in optimising the time and effort to crack down on masterminds behind economic offences.
“It is important for agencies to be smart enough to see which (data) has got to be actionable and which has to be immediately taken up. So, there is that area which I would still call as a grey area,” Sitharaman said.
Asking the DRI officers to go after masterminds of crime, she said, “No good if you catch the small fish of fry. The bigger ones are the ones who are not being touched by many of our actions. We need to have the entire smuggling chain, entire nefarious operation chain, tracked and acted upon. It’s not easy, but we should show some tangible results on it,” the Minister said.
Published on June 3, 2025
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The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
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