GAZETTED OFFICER is a higher level ranked public servant
and authority for the “Gazetted officer” stamp is granted by President of India
or Governor of the
States or Union
Territories. These
officers in the Central Government are entrusted with some supervisory and
managerial role. However the public conceives a Gazetted Officer only as an attesting
authority. The Central
civil Group ‘B’ services are the second level of command structure among the
broad categories of central civil services. Some of them are regular group ‘B’
services and others isolated posts in Group ‘B’ scales of pay. The recruitment
to Group’B’ service is generally through a mixture of direct recruitment and
promotions. There were no group ‘B’ services in the Government of India till
the year 1930. There is no uniform promotional / classification policies, the
Group ‘B’ /Group ‘A’ divisions in Gazetted services. Further on the functional
and responsibility there is not much difference and posts are interchangeable.
Therefore there is a need for reexamination of distinction of Group A and Group
B posts. The Gazetted posts can be restructured into four grades with automatic
movement from one grade to another. The
direct recruitment as well as recruitment through promotions to the Gazetted
services should be in the same ratio in all the departments, without any
restriction of age limit or on the consideration of ‘merit’. In the Government
Service, there should only two groups namely Gazetted & Non Gazetted. The
Share for induction in the officer cadre from Non Gazetted should be 80%
Further, the ratio should be based on the number of sanctioned posts and not on
vacancy. This will ensure adequate recognition for experience and will usher in
good governance. Currently, the
career progression of the various Group ‘B’ services is quite variable. Some
of the Group ‘B’ services, as for
example, in the Income Tax department and Central Excise Dept, are feeder
services to the corresponding Group ‘A’ services. Others, like the Central Secretariat service,
Railway Board secretariat service, armed force Head quarters service etc have
chances of promotions in their offices and some of them have even reached the
level of Joint Secretary, Additional Secretary, and Secretary. Some Group ‘B’
services are feeder to the All India Services, for example The Delhi, Andaman
and Nicobar civil services and the Delhi Andaman and Nicobar police service.
There are other Group ‘B’ services which are not so fortunate and face
prolonged stagnation. Job pattern of Group B officers and those at the entry
level in Group A, in almost all the Government Departments, are very similar
and there could be hardly any reason, except the legacy of India’s colonial past, for
persisting with two classes of officers in the Government. (During the days
of British Raj, these two classes were for differentiating between White &
Brown Sahibs). Such a division has no place in Independent India. It only
instills sense of class difference in the officer’s cadre, which thoroughly
demoralizes the officers at cutting edge level, striking a fatal blow at the
very roots of quality governance. The Hon’ble Commission may, therefore,
recommend to the Government to have only two cadres viz. Gazetted and Non-Gazetted. VI CPC observed
that “the Government has never conceded the principle of parity between Central
Secretariat Service with other ministerial Services. Hence the 6thCentral Pay commission has been never considered our view points. On the
Contrary it created lot of anomalous situations in the Group B cadre. Because
of the merger of the cadres the Gazetted Group B is suffocated between Group C
and Group A. Career Progression for Group B was not at all considered. The
Minimum wage for a Gazetted Group B was also not considered. The concept of
running a decent and a reasonable living wage for Gazetted Group B was never
thought of by these pay commissions. Gazette
notification of government decision on 6 CPC recommendations offered bigger
Bonanza to Group ‘A’ cadre only. The Grade Pay has been upwardly revised at ten
stages in favour of Gr ‘A’ officers, but not a single upgrade revision, not
even the anomalies pointed out in the construction of Pay Bands, have taken
place in the case of PB 2. For Senior Group A officers, another Pay Scale has
been created called HAG+ (Higher Administrative Grade). The creation of pay
scale 75500-80000 (not pay band) for HAG+ itself negated the argument that pay
commission recommendation on pay bands were sacrosanct and there could not be
any modifications in the pay scales. As regards Gazetted Officers Group B many
posts have been merged with same Grade Pay without any extra financial benefit. A Scheme for
joint consultation with the organizations of Government servants on the pattern
of the Whitely Machinery in the U.K.
was recommended by the Second Pay Commission (1959). The Scheme was introduced
in 1966 with the object of promoting harmonious relations and of securing the
greatest measure of cooperation between the Government, in its capacity as
employer, and its employees in matters of common concern, and with the object,
further, of increasing the efficiency of the public service. It broadly covers
over 95% of the regular civil employees of the Central Government including
industrial employees working in departmentally run undertakings like the
Railways and the Workshops/Production Units of various Ministries. The Scheme
is a voluntary one, and the Government as well as the Staff Associations/Unions
participating in the Scheme is required to subscribe to a Declaration of Joint
Intent which inter alia provides for abjuration of agitational methods by the
Staff Unions/Associations for redressal of their grievances. The Scheme covers
all regular civil employees of the Central Government, except: (A) the Class I
services; (B) the Class II services, other than the Central Secretariat
Services and the other comparable services in the headquarters
organization of the Government; (C) the persons in industrial establishments
employed mainly in managerial or administrative capacity, and those who
being employed in supervisory capacity employees of the Union Territories; and
(D) police personnel. More than five decades have gone since then and the
issues concerning the Gazetted Officers especially the middle-management cadres
continued to mount in the absence of“Grievance Redressal” machinery. The impact
of such a gross neglect has been accelerating despite the advent of successive
pay commissions and almost reached a level that no more bearable. The question whether the JCM scheme has been
successful in India in terms of non gazette employees of Government of India is
debatable the fact remains that the non-gazetted employees could atleast
redress their grievances before the JCM and many a times could achieve some
tangible results either through meaningful negotiation with National Council or
through Arbitration wherever the disagreement is reached notwithstanding the
fact it that the award delivered by the
Arbitration Board is subject to the authority of parliament to modify/reject on
grounds of national economy/social justice. It has been our
experience with the successive pay commissions that we have been treated as
ministerial staff and sometimes even lower. Our representations to the
Departmental Heads to the pay commissions, to the Ministry and every authority
concerned have been simply ignored or rejected off hand without any
justification. The sixth Pay Commission is no exception. It has in fact added
insult to injury by deliberately denying even the minimum benefit to the
Gazetted Officers including MACP. A culture of
human exploitation and disrespect for the law prevails, and we are expected to
discharge our public service at cheaper cost to enable certain people to pocket
extra profit. Disrespect for human beings is in the DNA of the current system.
While slavery is, of course, the most extreme situation in the field level
offices, the truth is that the Gazetted and Promotee officers are being
ruthlessly over loaded. Our Officers perform backbreaking work, at very low pay scales; and virtually no
protection to their self-respect exists. Historically these Gazetted Officers
have been and continue to be excluded from Indian fair labour standards and are
prevented from associating themselves. The cruelty of modern-day slavery
prevailing in the Departments have motivated our officers to continue fighting
for their rights, prompting the Government agencies to support our demands that
include better pay scales and working conditions and new environment. Pay commissions
have been viewed, or at least portrayed, as a stable watch dog of our economy,
looking out for everyone’s good like a kind of gentle Big Brother. Any one
attacking these Commissions’ Reports particularly the members of the
Association, have been dismissed as crazy people. We wouldn’t survive without
the Pay Commissions, is what most of our Gazetted officers believe. What we
fail to see is the reality that the door to the Pay Commission is a revolving one
working at the behest of the Finance Ministry of India. What we did not see is
that the Pay commission is a ruling class agency that manufactures policy in
the interests of that class. Our job now is to unite every resource available
and put every shoulder to the wheel and assert ourselves. A strong united
movement of Gazetted officers serving in the Central Government alone can
change the status of the Gazetted Officers and render Justice. Our thirst for
justice has remained unquenched for five decades. In fact it has been
deliberately allowed to be aggravated by repeated injustice by the Pay Commissions
and by the Authorities who seem to have taken upon themselves the task of
suppressing us further and further in to virtual slavery. Our thirst for
justice is real, acute and painful. We can quench our thirst with a fair deal
only when we, every one of us, establish emphatically that we are capable of
sustained struggle. Our thirst will be quenched when every one of us
demonstrate that “it is nobler to take arms against the sea of troubles and
by opposing end them”
