Hundreds of Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officials protested at North Block on Friday to demand promotion, the lack of which had created around 1,500 vacancies in the middle management ranks.
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The office of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) is located at North Block in Central Delhi. This is not the first time the serving officials have protested against the government.
The CSS forum, a representative body of all CSS officers, wrote a letter to Personnel Minister Jitendra Singh on June 8 that if eligible officers were not given promotion before July 1, they would incur a financial loss of more than ₹10,000 per month.
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The forum said that there would be more than 50% vacancies in Section Officer (SO) grade in Central Secretariat if promotions were not given on time.
Adverse effect
An official said that even after a directive from the Prime Minister for providing 10 lakh Central government jobs by December, there were more than 1,500 posts in the SO grade that were lying vacant and it adversely affected the smooth functioning of Ministries.
Last year, after sustained protests, DoPT moved the proposal for the promotion of eligible Assistant Section Officers; however less than 250 people were promoted. Around 800 eligible people are waiting for promotion for the last one year despite there being ample vacancies.
Section Officer is a key position in the Secretariat administration as they are responsible for the distribution of work among other officials; coordination of work; and timely issuance of letters and other communication.
As on January 1, the sanctioned strength of CSS officers at all levels was 13,016 and the vacancies as on May 1, stood at 2,946 at nearly 23%. Out of the sanctioned strength of 3,640 for the position of SOs, there were 1,533 vacancies at nearly 43%.