'Tax officers struggled for own land': Nirmala Sitharaman slams laidback attitude of govt depts

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today called out the bureaucratic apathy in government administration, urging the Income Tax department to use the lesson to empathise with ordinary citizens.

In 1973, the Income Tax Department secured a prime piece of land in Mumbai’s Nariman Point. Over the next five decades, officials watched as the unattended plot was illegally occupied, battling endless bureaucratic red tape just to reclaim their own property and construct an office building.

Inaugurating “Aaykar Sindhu” — a 13-floor, 1.13 lakh sq ft complex built on that very land — Sitharaman called out the “laidback” mindset that leaves state assets vulnerable to encroachment and forces citizens into endless administrative loops.

She noted that if a department with immense enforcement authority faced decades of procedural friction to build its own headquarters, it should serve as a stark reminder of what ordinary taxpayers endure daily.

“The fact that you led it to have occupations, illegal occupation, shows somewhere in our governance, we are too laid back. It is somebody’s job to take care of our assets, and when it is encroached, we say, oh, we have the land, but we can’t build it,” she said.

Sitharaman urged tax officers to use their own frustrating experience as an incentive to reform their approach toward the public.

“Can this (experience) incentivise you to understand the position of a common citizen when he approaches you? Don’t make them run from pillar to post where your authority is required; do the work for them,” the FM said.

Clarifying her mandate, the Finance Minister emphasised that she was not asking revenue authorities to compromise on rules or grant unlawful concessions, but to eliminate artificial bottlenecks that turn routine procedures into ordeals. She urged the department to abandon administrative indifference and act as a responsive facilitator for taxpayers across the country.