New Delhi, Jun 22 (PTI) The Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officers’ association has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to ensure promotion of assistant section officers (ASOs) to the grade of section officers.
In a letter to the prime minister, it said the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has time and again acknowledged that the acute shortage of section officers (SOs) in ministries is paralysing functioning of the government and eventually affecting the efficient, effective and timely delivery of public services.
“However, it is discouraging that the ASOs who are referred to as backbone of central secretariat are deliberately being deprived of their due promotion (regular as well as ad-hoc), even after having due eligibility for available vacancies, just because of reluctance of a few officers in the DoPT,” said the letter written by the CSS Forum, a representative body of all CSS officers.
It said in compliance with “your most welcomed announcement of providing 10 lakh employment in a time-bound manner”, the DoPT has been directing all departments to fill up all the posts through appointment/promotion in all possible manners.
“However, the DoPT itself is not considering filling up of all the vacancies in the SO Grade in its very own CSS cadre for no visible reasons, despite having all the solutions for regular as well as ad-hoc promotions as per its own guidelines,” said the letter dated June 21.
The officers’ body sought the prime minister’s intervention for filling up of all the vacancies in the SO grade by immediate promotion (regular/ad-hoc) of all eligible ASOs before June 30, 2023 to strengthen the CSS cadre so as to enable them to deliver the public service efficiently and to take part in effective good governance.
The forum cited its letters dated June 8 and 19, 2023 to Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh to consider filling up the large number of vacancies (2,100 approximately) in the SO grade by immediate promotion of all the eligible ASOs.
In this regard, the CSS Forum has held several meetings with the officer concerned in the DoPT in the last 10 days for exploring possible solutions to fill up all aforesaid vacancies in the SO grade by 30th June, 2023, said the letter signed by Ashutosh Misra, General Secretary, CSS Forum.
However, it has been learnt that the DoPT is planning to promote only approx 1,050 ASOs due to which around 450 eligible ASOs of the 2013 batch will be deprived of promotion, despite being eligible for promotion, it said. PTI AKV AQS
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.