The Evening Wrap: 30% vacancies in Central offices as Government holds promotions for past six years

Nearly 30% positions are vacant in middle to senior management rank in various Central government Ministries as the Union government has not promoted officials of the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) in the past six years. The employees have petitioned the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to issue promotion orders as many officials have retired in these years, losing out on enhanced salary and pension benefits. The Forum has even tried to catch the attention of the government through a Twitter storm last week. According to CSS Forum, an association of government officers, there are 6,210 officers in the rank of section officer, Under Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Director and Joint Secretaries with 1,839 positions of them lying vacant. The CSS officers are the backbone of the offices as files, documents and orders are processed by them. A CSS official said the promotions are stuck on the pretext of pending court cases. In October 2021, the Supreme Court reserved its judgment on the grant of reservation in promotion to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) in government jobs. A contempt petition was filed against the promotions issued by the DoPT and that matter was tagged with the case pertaining to the reservation in promotion to the SC/STs. Manmohan Verma, General Secretary of the CSS Forum, said that in June 2018, the DoPT had issued instructions to all Departments and Ministries to effect promotions according to the judgment of the apex court in Jarnail Singh Vs Union of India and others. “Accordingly, all Departments are issuing regular promotion orders of all Central government employees but only the DoPT, which is the cadre controlling authority of the CSS officers, has not issued orders for regular promotions for more than six years on the pretext of pending court cases,” Verma said. A five-judge Bench judgment in the Jarnail Singh case in 2018 had provided for “accelerated promotion with consequential seniority” for SC/ST members in government services. In 2018, the Supreme Court said it was up to the State governments to find ways and means of implementing the court’s June 2018 judgment. To tide over the crisis, the DoPT promoted 2,770 officials on an ad hoc basis since 2020. “There are more than 1,800 vacancies that needs to be filled through promotions on an immediate basis… further out of the 4,400 officers, more than 60% are working on an ad hoc promotion,” said a CSS official. The vacancies are in addition to the acute shortage of the All India Services (AIS) officers — IAS, IPS and IFoS. To fix the shortage, which according to the DoPT has arisen as States are not sponsoring adequate numbers of officers for Central deputation, the department has proposed amendments that could give more powers to it to summon AIS officers to be posted with the Union government. Protesting Railway job aspirants torch train in Bihar’s Gaya A train was set on fire and demonstrations were staged at a couple of stations on Wednesday, marking the third day of unrest in Bihar against alleged anomalies in the tests conducted by the Railway Recruitment Board for the NTPC category. A crowd stormed the Gaya Junction, raising slogans, and set fire to the Bhabhua-Patna Inter City Express, though nobody was injured. East Central Railway CPRO Rajesh Kumar told PTI-Bhasha, “The rakes were empty and parked inside the yard when miscreants set a coach on fire. It has not resulted in disruption of rail traffic.” Gaya SSP Aditya Kumar said some of the agitators were taken into custody. “We have brought the situation at Gaya Junction under control. Some protesters have been taken into custody. Action will be taken after the arsonists are identified,” Kumar said. The ECR CPRO said demonstrations were also witnessed at Taregana, on the outskirts of Patna, and at Jehanabad though agitators there were pacified without much trouble. Officials said that in Sitamarhi, police fired in the air to disperse demonstrators at the railway station. Protests were also reported from Patna, Nawada, Muzaffarpur, Buxar and Bhojpur districts. Several trains were cancelled or ran on alternative routes on Tuesday on account of the protests. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw urged job aspirants not to destroy public property and assured them that their grievances would be resolved as candidates went on a rampage over alleged irregularities in a recruitment exam by the public transporter. Earlier in the day, the Ministry suspended the Non-Technical Popular Categories (RRB NTPC) and the Level 2 exams after reports of vandalism by job aspirants from different parts of the country came to light. Candidates are opposing the Railways' decision to hold the exam in two stages, claiming the second stage for final selection tantamount to “cheating” those who appeared and cleared the first stage of the RRB-NTPC for computer-based test (CBT) which was released on January 15. Around 1.25 crore candidates had applied for the exams that had advertised over 35,000 posts from level 2 to level 6. California University Board unanimously votes to recognise protection from caste discrimination The California State University (CSU) system’s board of trustees voted unanimously on Tuesday to ratify a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with its faculty union that adds caste to the list of categories that are protected against discrimination. The move comes after a few hundred individuals allied with trade coalitions and rights groups as well as faculty wrote in support of the move, which was opposed by a smaller group of eighty-plus faculty that said it would target Indian and South Asian origin individuals for special scrutiny. The addition of caste as a ‘protected category’ to the CBA with the union (the California Faculty Association or CFA) follows from an earlier move by the 23-campus system to bring caste into the purview of its anti-discrimination policy. Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Executive Director of Equality Labs, a Dalit rights organisation that works for institutional recognition of caste discrimination, said that the “undemocratic efforts of opponents who are opposed to caste equity” could not derail things -- a reference to the opposition from a faculty group that opposed the change. The group had the backing of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which had written to oppose the move. “Neither CFA nor CSU have the right to negotiate a denial of constitutional rights to equal protection and due process,” Suhag Shukla, Executive Director of HAF said in a statement to the trustees that she posted to her Twitter account. Shukla said she was not given the opportunity to provide testimony but the statement contained what she had planned to say. The recognition of caste as a dimension of discrimination is gaining institutional support in the U.S. For instance, in December, Harvard University ratified an agreement with its Graduate Student Union in December which included caste as a protected category. Assembly elections: Cash, drugs worth over ₹200 crore seized since announcement of polls Authorities in the five States where elections were announced on January 8 had seized cash, drugs, liquor and other inducements worth over ₹200 crore so far, a senior Election Commission official said. The official said the value of the seized items in Punjab, Goa, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand polls had reached ₹200 crore on Monday, with Punjab and Manipur accounting for a large amount of the illicit drugs and Uttar Pradesh for cash. According to the Uttarakhand government on Tuesday, drugs worth ₹2.81 crore and ₹1.74 crore cash had been seized starting January 10. Three FIRs had also been lodged in connection with the “inducements”. Authorities in Goa had seized cash, drugs and alcohol worth ₹2.93 crore so far, Chief Electoral Officer Kunal said on Wednesday. He said enforcement by the authorities had been good on all fronts and most cases lodged pertained to violation of COVID-19-related rules. In Punjab, the Chief Electoral Officer’s Twitter handle on Wednesday said 3,675 complaints of Model Code of Conduct violation had been received through the Election Commission’s cVigil app till Tuesday. All of them had been disposed of — the highest being in Ludhiana — and 2,720 of them were found to be correct. During the last set of Assembly elections in 2021 (Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala), the EC had announced seizures of cash, drugs, liquor, precious metals and other freebies worth over ₹ 1,000 crore. In a statement in April 2021, the EC had said the value of the seizures had crossed ₹1,000 crore for the first time in any Assembly election process. On Republic Day, Tamil Nadu showcases tableau rejected by Centre Republic Day celebrations in Tamil Nadu saw the showcasing of the tableau featuring the sacrifice of freedom fighters -- the Marudu Brothers, Velu Natchiyar, Kappalottiya Tamizhan V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and many others. The tableau, originally conceived of by the Tamil Nadu government for participation in the Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi, was rejected by the Centre. One tableau depicted the hanging of the Marudu Brothers — Chinna Marudu and Periya Marudu — at Tirupattur after they were defeated by the British. Velu Natchiyar was seen riding a horse. National poet Subramania Bharthiyar was prominently featured in a tableau along with VVS Iyer, Quaid-e-Millath and others. Freedom fighter VOC, pulling an oil press, was also part of the depiction. However, the tableau with Periyar drew the most amount of attention of the participants. He was the leading figure of the tableau showcasing Tirupur Kumaran, who continued to hold the flag even after he fell to the lathis of the British police. Earlier, Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi unfurled the National Flag in the presence of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Chief Secretary Irai Anbu and other dignitaries. In his message, Stalin said, “Let us reaffirm the upholding of the secular ethos of the Constitution on this Republic Day and be proud of the great achievements to uplift the people of our nation in all spheres.” Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 4,00,86,670 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 4,91,180. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 26 JANUARY 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( 30% vacancies in Central offices as Government holds promotions for past six years Nearly [30% positions are vacant in middle to senior management rank in various Central government Ministries]( as the Union government has not promoted officials of the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) in the past six years. The employees have petitioned the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to issue promotion orders as many officials have retired in these years, losing out on enhanced salary and pension benefits. The Forum has even tried to catch the attention of the government through a Twitter storm last week. According to CSS Forum, an association of government officers, there are 6,210 officers in the rank of section officer, Under Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Director and Joint Secretaries with 1,839 positions of them lying vacant. The CSS officers are the backbone of the offices as files, documents and orders are processed by them. A CSS official said the promotions are stuck on the pretext of pending court cases. In October 2021, the Supreme Court reserved its judgment on the grant of reservation in promotion to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) in government jobs. A contempt petition was filed against the promotions issued by the DoPT and that matter was tagged with the case pertaining to the reservation in promotion to the SC/STs. Manmohan Verma, General Secretary of the CSS Forum, said that in June 2018, the DoPT had issued instructions to all Departments and Ministries to effect promotions according to the judgment of the apex court in Jarnail Singh Vs Union of India and others. “Accordingly, all Departments are issuing regular promotion orders of all Central government employees but only the DoPT, which is the cadre controlling authority of the CSS officers, has not issued orders for regular promotions for more than six years on the pretext of pending court cases,” Verma said. A five-judge Bench judgment in the Jarnail Singh case in 2018 had provided for “accelerated promotion with consequential seniority” for SC/ST members in government services. In 2018, the Supreme Court said it was up to the State governments to find ways and means of implementing the court’s June 2018 judgment. To tide over the crisis, the DoPT promoted 2,770 officials on an ad hoc basis since 2020. “There are more than 1,800 vacancies that needs to be filled through promotions on an immediate basis… further out of the 4,400 officers, more than 60% are working on an ad hoc promotion,” said a CSS official. The vacancies are in addition to the acute shortage of the All India Services (AIS) officers — IAS, IPS and IFoS. To fix the shortage, which according to the DoPT has arisen as States are not sponsoring adequate numbers of officers for Central deputation, the department has proposed amendments that could give more powers to it to summon AIS officers to be posted with the Union government. [underlineimg] Protesting Railway job aspirants torch train in Bihar’s Gaya [A train was set on fire and demonstrations were staged at a couple of stations]( on Wednesday, marking the third day of unrest in Bihar against alleged anomalies in the tests conducted by the Railway Recruitment Board for the NTPC category. A crowd stormed the Gaya Junction, raising slogans, and set fire to the Bhabhua-Patna Inter City Express, though nobody was injured. East Central Railway CPRO Rajesh Kumar told PTI-Bhasha, “The rakes were empty and parked inside the yard when miscreants set a coach on fire. It has not resulted in disruption of rail traffic.” Gaya SSP Aditya Kumar said some of the agitators were taken into custody. “We have brought the situation at Gaya Junction under control. Some protesters have been taken into custody. Action will be taken after the arsonists are identified,” Kumar said. [A train burns after protesters set it on fire at Gaya railway station on January 26, 2022 during their demonstration over alleged erroneous results of Railway Recruitment Boards-Non Technical Popular Categories exams.]  The ECR CPRO said demonstrations were also witnessed at Taregana, on the outskirts of Patna, and at Jehanabad though agitators there were pacified without much trouble. Officials said that in Sitamarhi, police fired in the air to disperse demonstrators at the railway station. Protests were also reported from Patna, Nawada, Muzaffarpur, Buxar and Bhojpur districts. Several trains were cancelled or ran on alternative routes on Tuesday on account of the protests. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw urged job aspirants not to destroy public property and assured them that their grievances would be resolved as candidates went on a rampage over alleged irregularities in a recruitment exam by the public transporter. Earlier in the day, the Ministry suspended the Non-Technical Popular Categories (RRB NTPC) and the Level 2 exams after reports of vandalism by job aspirants from different parts of the country came to light. Candidates are opposing the Railways' decision to hold the exam in two stages, claiming the second stage for final selection tantamount to “cheating” those who appeared and cleared the first stage of the RRB-NTPC for computer-based test (CBT) which was released on January 15. Around 1.25 crore candidates had applied for the exams that had advertised over 35,000 posts from level 2 to level 6. [underlineimg] California University Board unanimously votes to recognise protection from caste discrimination The California State University (CSU) system’s board of trustees voted unanimously on Tuesday to ratify a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with its faculty union that [adds caste to the list of categories that are protected against discrimination](. The move comes after a few hundred individuals allied with trade coalitions and rights groups as well as faculty wrote in support of the move, which was opposed by a smaller group of eighty-plus faculty that said it would target Indian and South Asian origin individuals for special scrutiny. The addition of caste as a ‘protected category’ to the CBA with the union (the California Faculty Association or CFA) follows from an earlier move by the 23-campus system to bring caste into the purview of its anti-discrimination policy. Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Executive Director of Equality Labs, a Dalit rights organisation that works for institutional recognition of caste discrimination, said that the “undemocratic efforts of opponents who are opposed to caste equity” could not derail things -- a reference to the opposition from a faculty group that opposed the change. The group had the backing of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which had written to oppose the move. “Neither CFA nor CSU have the right to negotiate a denial of constitutional rights to equal protection and due process,” Suhag Shukla, Executive Director of HAF said in a statement to the trustees that she posted to her Twitter account. Shukla said she was not given the opportunity to provide testimony but the statement contained what she had planned to say. The recognition of caste as a dimension of discrimination is gaining institutional support in the U.S. For instance, in December, Harvard University ratified an agreement with its Graduate Student Union in December which included caste as a protected category. [underlineimg] Assembly elections: Cash, drugs worth over ₹200 crore seized since announcement of polls Authorities in the five States where elections were announced on January 8 had [seized cash, drugs, liquor and other inducements worth over ₹200 crore so far]( a senior Election Commission official said. The official said the value of the seized items in Punjab, Goa, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand polls had reached ₹200 crore on Monday, with Punjab and Manipur accounting for a large amount of the illicit drugs and Uttar Pradesh for cash. According to the Uttarakhand government on Tuesday, drugs worth ₹2.81 crore and ₹1.74 crore cash had been seized starting January 10. Three FIRs had also been lodged in connection with the “inducements”. Authorities in Goa had seized cash, drugs and alcohol worth ₹2.93 crore so far, Chief Electoral Officer Kunal said on Wednesday. He said enforcement by the authorities had been good on all fronts and most cases lodged pertained to violation of COVID-19-related rules. In Punjab, the Chief Electoral Officer’s Twitter handle on Wednesday said 3,675 complaints of Model Code of Conduct violation had been received through the Election Commission’s cVigil app till Tuesday. All of them had been disposed of — the highest being in Ludhiana — and 2,720 of them were found to be correct. During the last set of Assembly elections in 2021 (Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala), the EC had announced seizures of cash, drugs, liquor, precious metals and other freebies worth over ₹ 1,000 crore. In a statement in April 2021, the EC had said the value of the seizures had crossed ₹1,000 crore for the first time in any Assembly election process. [underlineimg] On Republic Day, Tamil Nadu showcases tableau rejected by Centre Republic Day celebrations in Tamil Nadu saw the showcasing of the tableau featuring the sacrifice of freedom fighters -- the Marudu Brothers, Velu Natchiyar, Kappalottiya Tamizhan V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and many others. The tableau, originally conceived of by the Tamil Nadu government for participation in the Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi, was [rejected by the Centre](. One tableau depicted the hanging of the Marudu Brothers — Chinna Marudu and Periya Marudu — at Tirupattur after they were defeated by the British. Velu Natchiyar was seen riding a horse. National poet Subramania Bharthiyar was prominently featured in a tableau along with VVS Iyer, Quaid-e-Millath and others. Freedom fighter VOC, pulling an oil press, was also part of the depiction. [The Republic Day floats, featuring freedom fighters, showcased in Chennai on Wednesday]  However, the tableau with Periyar drew the most amount of attention of the participants. He was the leading figure of the tableau showcasing Tirupur Kumaran, who continued to hold the flag even after he fell to the lathis of the British police. Earlier, Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi unfurled the National Flag in the presence of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Chief Secretary Irai Anbu and other dignitaries. In his message, Stalin said, “Let us reaffirm the upholding of the secular ethos of the Constitution on this Republic Day and be proud of the great achievements to uplift the people of our nation in all spheres.” [underlineimg] Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The [number of reported coronavirus cases from India]( stood at 4,00,86,670 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 4,91,180. 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