More than 11 years ago, Divya* wrote her Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) with the dream of joining the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).
She went through the same process a future IAS officer would undergo, but as her score was lower than required, she joined another Civil Service, the Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service [AFHQ(CS)], as a Section Officer, a Gazetted post.
More than a decade later, Ms. Divya is yet to receive her first promotion. She is still a Section Officer.
“Every day, I ask myself, why I am not quitting? And I come to the conclusion that I will be worse off if I quit,” Ms. Divya said. “It affects every aspect of my life. When you are in a situation like this, you start questioning your self worth.”
Ninety-nine out of 100 posts of Joint Directors (JD) in the AFHQ(CS) are vacant due to pending court cases, according to data shared with The Hindu. A Section Officer is eligible for promotion as Deputy Director after six years of service, and then gets duly promoted to Joint Director, Director, and Principal Director.
The court cases are connected to promotions from Deputy Director to Joint Director, leading to a freeze in promotions at lower levels too, with many like Ms. Divya unwitting victims of it.
When contacted, a Ministry of Defence source said: “The matter is in court. As soon as the necessary directions are received from the court, further action will be initiated.”
What now?
The AFHQ(CS) cadre is a Civil Service under the Ministry of Defence. It was constituted in 1968 to provide continuity in the functioning of the integrated headquarters of the Ministry of Defence (Army HQ, Navy HQ and Airforce HQ), Defence Staff Headquarters, and inter-Service organisations such as the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
A Section Officer in the AFHQ(CS) is equivalent to a Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM)-level officer.
“You might think that I’m the only one who is waiting for a promotion. But there are others who have been waiting longer than me,” Ms. Divya said. “When I tell my friends from my days of preparing for the UPSC examination, who are in IAS or IPS, that I’m yet to get my first promotion, they are shocked that the UPSC conducted the exam but no one is bothered that after more than 10 years, there are no promotions,” she added.
Ms. Divya said that she doesn’t feel like being in touch with many of her friends because her career not going anywhere.
“We have gone through the toughest exam in the country and there is no career progression. Can you believe it?” she asked.
Another AFHQ(CS) Section Officer said that they should be provided more avenues and be better utilised by the government.
“For instance, most of the other Civil Services are part of Central Staffing Scheme, but we are not eligible for it. Basically, what we are saying is that the government can get more work out of us,” he said.
A third Section Officer, who is also awaiting a promotion, said that what they were currently doing was mere clerical work despite having eight years of experience they had not been promoted.
“We are given simple duties, predominantly clerical in nature, such as checking English, and we are not part of policy formation, whereas we would fit well in the defence integration plan as we have experience in working with different branches,” the officer said.
(*Name has been changed to protect identity)
( With inputs from Dinakar Peri)
