A primer on GOI's hidden power centre and why the CSS calls the shots

The overwhelming number of officers in the CSS cadres are an indication of the clout it wields on key policy decisions across ministries

In May this year, in a surprise of sorts, the secretary of the department of personnel and training (DoPT), Pradip Kumar Tripathi, was suddenly transferred to the cabinet secretariat as Secretary, Coordination. He was replaced by S Radha Chauhan, additional chief secretary, in charge of the crucial finance and tax department in the Uttar Pradesh government. She left just weeks before the Yogi Aditayanth led government in the state presented its first budget in the second term. 

Two things about the transfers stood out. It is not usual for a DoPT secretary to be moved out, with a substantial innings still ahead. Two, the transfers happened just days before a cadre of officers in the central government, the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officers' association, threatened a most unusual “non-cooperation movement” to protest alleged delays in their promotion. In their letter to Jitendra Singh, minister for DoPT, the CSS association claimed those delays were causing “irreparable financial loss” to them.

Unknown to the public eye: 

Before going any further, here is a quiz. Which is the largest cadre of officers in the central government? It is not the Indian Administrative Service, not by a long shot. The biggest cadre is of the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) at 12,897. The IAS is less than half that, spread mostly in the states with less than 500 serving at the centre at any moment. 

So in any ministry and its department at the Centre, officers of the CSS outnumber others handsomely. There could be sometimes even one IAS or other central service officer in a department, but there shall be never less than a dozen from the CSS. For instance, just the number of under secretaries, deputy secretaries and director from this cadre number 2,607 (March 2021, DoPT annual report).

It is a vast network within the central government. The ability of this network to impact policies or programmes is immense and as the sudden transfers showed, much else besides. In a surprise move, Sudhanshu Pandey, secretary,  department of food and public distribution, immersed himself in their cause. In April, days before Tripathi was moved out of DoPT, Pandey wrote a letter saying the lack of officers from CSS posted to his department was adversely impacting the functioning of his department.

Yet, these chains of services are almost totally out of the public eye, even from those who claim to know the functioning of the government of India deeply. The CSS, by all accounts is the muscle, bones and nervous system of the Indian central government administrative machinery. Their counterparts in the Railways and Defence are the Railway Board Secretariat Service and Armed Forces Headquarter Services.

Since unlike the officers from the All India Services like IAS and IPS, and the central services like the IRS, Indian Audit and Accounts Service or even the relaunched Indian Railway Management Service, do not stay in any post for longer than five years, the institutional memory of the administration, rests within the confines of this service. There has hardly ever been a public commentary on the role played by this service in extending or pulling back the efficacy of the central government.

In any ministry, the posts from Assistant Section Officers upwards to the level of Deputy Secretary are staffed by those from the cadre of CSS. (see organogram) There shall be at times some odd exceptions, but those are minuscule. So the officer grade positions, both at junior and middle management are controlled by this service. Even more, in the central government, the largest number of officers other than IAS cadre who hold joint secretary level positions are from the CSS. (see table)

To this list, if one adds the counterparts of the CSS in the state civil services, one gets a sense of how much of the permanent government machinery is wrapped in their colours. 

The role of CSS: 

The essential mandate of the positions occupied by the CSS officers is to examine any letter, representation or document from anywhere that seeks the attention of the central government. These officers are trained to be the repository of the government’s position on any subject, within their departments. They examine the papers and make observations if those match with those of the government. Based on their understanding, a case file is moved, agreeing with those letters, representations or documents, or rejected. In some cases they suggest a modification of the government position. 

Shorn of jargon, if an Amazon asks for a chance to open a multi-brand retail outlet, it is these CSS officers in the department for promotion of industry and internal trade who will decide if the application is kosher, as per government policy. The files with their observations, will land on the table of the joint secretary to that of the secretary of the department. In other words they are the government, deep state. 

It is a painstaking job and much of what we understand as government work, sits here. Senior management level executives positioned above the CSS officers, use these notes to frame arguments and often involve the minister and the cabinet to make decisions accordingly. Often, when those outside the government say one needs to read the fine print of a decision, they mean the interpretation as read by a CSS officer. 

This means the reasons why the India government functioning is often supposed to be tied up in red tape is an outcome determined by the CSS cadre. On the flip side as this red tape comes off, the credit for it should also be gathered by them.

One of those was last year. Minister Singh announced that to make the movement of files less laborious, none move more than four levels in the government. An agency report noted that these four will be A senior government official said that now, the four levels identified for the channel of submission are secretary, additional secretary or joint secretary, director or deputy secretary or undersecretary, and all other levels. 

Plenty of commentators have ascribed the testimony by Sardar Patel about the sterling role of the civil service in India as a reference to the IAS. They need to be reminded that the first cadre reform in the civil services happened for the CSS, in the year 1949. The RA Gopalaswamy Iyengar committee drew up the present structure of this service and its role in the central government drawing upon the already existing Imperial Secretariat Service. It has stood its time with modifications. 

The Karmayogi scheme brought in by the Narendra Modi led government which has a Capacity Building Commission, headed by former McKinsey chief, Adil Zainulbhai will be primarily tested by how much they can change the role of CSS to offer “Transparency, Accountability and People-Centric Delivery mechanisms”.