New Delhi, Feb 25 (IANS): An unprecedented situation arose in North Block on Friday when officials of the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) assembled outside the Department of Personnel and Training under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension.

These officials have been demanding an expedited decision on the promotion of officials which has been delayed by six years. These employees are saying that nearly 30 percent positions in the CSS are vacant in the middle to senior management rank in various Central ministries as the Union government has not promoted officials of the CSS for the past six years.

An employee on condition of anonymity said that they have petitioned the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to issue promotion orders as many officials have retired in recent years that deprived them of enhanced salary and pension benefits. The Forum has even tried to raise this issue on social media including a Twitter storm in January too but nothing happened in this regard.

According to the CSS Forum, an association of Central government officers, there are 6,210 officers in the rank of section officer, Under Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Director and Joint Secretaries while a total of 1,839 posts are lying vacant in these officers' groups.

Considered as the backbone of the Central government offices as most of the files, documents and orders are processed by these officers, they further said that the promotions have been stuck on the pretext of pending court cases. However, with the aim to ease the crisis, the DoPT promoted 2,770 officials on an ad hoc basis recently as out of 4,400 officers, more than 60 percent have been working on ad hoc promotions.

The CSS officials also said that 1,800 vacancies need to be filled through promotions immediately.