Central Secretariat

The Central Secretariat refers to the various offices and departments, which are run by the secretaries of the Union Government. The term "Secretariat" essentially means the Secretary"s office. Central Secretariat functions to increase coordination at the central level and to advise the minister in policy making and administrative matters. In order to enable him to discharge his functions properly, it is necessary that he should be equipped with an office. This office is the Central Secretariat. There are different types of government offices in the administrative structure of India, which vary in the nature and range of functions. At the top of all these offices is the Secretariat.

The Constitution of India has given the executive authority of the Union Government to the President of the country. All executive actions of the Union Government are taken in his name. However, the Indian President is a mere constitutional and formal head and there is a Council of Ministers with the Indian Prime Minister at its head to aid and advice the President in the exercise of his functions. The ministers cannot work all alone and need assistance. Therefore, the government of India is divided into ministries and departments, which together constitute the `Central Secretariat.` To implement the policies enunciated by the ministers in consultation with the Secretariat, there are attached offices, subordinate offices and other field agencies.

Development of Central Secretariat was a long process in the making, beginning in the pre-independent era. To begin with, the secretariat in India was nothing but the office of the Governor-General known in colloquial Hindustani as Lat Saheb Ka Daftar (Office of the Lord). The Central Secretariat was established at Fort William in West Bengal. It was required to furnish the requisite information for the formulation of policy and to carry out the orders of the British East India Company`s Government. Before 1756, the President and the Council at Fort William transacted all their business in one general department with the help of a Secretary and a few assistants. On the arrival of packets from England the Secretary laid them before the Council for orders and the instructions which, when issued, were conveyed for execution to the authorities concerned. Lord Cornwallis took some steps towards organizing and strengthening the secretariat. His main contribution was to create the office of the Secretary-General (later to be known as the Chief Secretary) in whom was concentrated all powers and responsibility. Lord Wellesley too took a keen interest in reorganizing the secretariat, and his reform proved to be a turning point in the development of the Central secretariat. Under his scheme the work of the secretariat increased considerably in both bulk and responsibility.

At the close of the eighteenth century the supreme government consisted of a Governor-General and three Councillors, and the Secretariat of four departments. Each of them was under a Secretary, and there was a Chief Secretary in overall control of them. In 1919, the total strength of the secretariat was 29 to which could be added 17 more officers of the two boards. This number remained unchanged till the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The reforms of 1919 brought about a major change in the process of governance. Whereas the secretariat had for so long been functioning as a tribunal of reference and general supervision, the role of the Secretariat now changed from a merely policy formulating, supervising and coordinating agency to that of an executive agency as well. The inauguration of provincial autonomy in 1937 gave further impetus to this trend.

The outbreak of the Second World War accelerated the above process. It threw new and heavy burdens on the Government of India and almost overnight new functions had to be assumed like civil defence mobilization of men and materials for war, food and civil supplies. Since there were no established executive agencies to undertake these new tasks and as the bulk of senior civil service officers in the field and provinces had already been drawn to the secretariat, the Secretariat itself had to undertake these tasks and in doing so trespassed outside the sphere of policy-making into that of executive administration. Another factor which helped the new trend was the fact that there was no settled policy with regard to this new range of functions and the business of improving policies at different points could only be performed in the secretariat.

The Second World War, thus, witnessed rapid expansion of the administrative machinery and big changes in its structuring and functions. The strength of the Governor-General`s Council was increased from 7 to 14 and the number of secretariat departments rose to as many as 19. In consequence, there was a four-fold increase of the central secretariat and the total official strength rose to about two hundred. Post-war there was felt the need for re-organise the administrative machinery and gear it towards performing new tasks. This task was left to the successor Government of the newly independent nation.

The Government of India was still grappling with the post-war problems of demobilisation and reconstruction, when came independence, accompanied by the partition of the country. The combination of the various issues at hand and the need to effectively administer the country led to a marked increase in the number of departments, offices, officers, and clerks. This increase in the requirement of personnel in the secretariat and its offices posed a serious problem of securing adequate personnel of the right calibre and quality. Additional personnel had to be found immediately to cope with the increasing workload. Recruitment standards consequently declined and officers could not be given adequate training. At the same time, unprecedented vacuum in the high ranks of the civil service led to quick and out of turn promotions. It is for this reason that the senior officers of the secretariat, being aware of the relative lack of maturity and experience on the part of the junior officers in-charge of attached and subordinate offices, continued to keep a close eye on the working of the offices and in many cases even assumed the functions of these offices. This trend has continued ever since.

The Central Secretariat is a collection of various ministries and departments. But the Cabinet Secretariat, which is in reality a ministry comprising more than one department, is still known as the secretariat. A ministry is the charge allotted to ministers. This may include one or more departments depending upon administrative convenience, each under the charge of a secretary. A department on the other hand is an organizational unit consisting of a secretary to government together with a part of the central secretariat under his administrative control on which the responsibility of performing specific functions has been conferred. Thus technically, a department should be identified with a secretary`s charge and a ministry with a minister`s charge. However, this distinction is not always maintained. Thus, if a ministry has more than one department within itself, it may have more than one secretary in which case there will arise the need for making one secretary superior to other secretaries who will represent the ministry.

A ministry is responsible for the formation of the government policy within its sphere of responsibility as well as for the execution of that policy. Thus in terms of internal organisation, a ministry is divided into the following segments within an officer in charge of each of them to expedite matters:

Department- Secretary/Additional/Special Secretary
Wing- Joint/Additional Secretary.
Division- Under Secretary.
Section- Section Officer

The lowest of such units is the section in charge of a Section Officer and consists of a number of assistants, clerks, "Daftaries," typists and peons. It deals with the work relating to the subject allotted to it. It is also referred to as the Office. Two sections constitute the branch which is under the charge of an under secretary, also known as the Branch Officer. Two branches ordinarily form a division which is normally headed by a deputy secretary. When the volume of work in a ministry exceeds the manageable charge of a secretary, one or more wings are established with a joint secretary in charge of each wing. At the top of the hierarchy comes the department which is headed by the secretary himself or in some cases by an additional/ special secretary. In some cases, a department may be as autonomous as a ministry and equivalent to it in rank.

The functions and role of such officers are:
Secretary : A secretary is the administrative head of a ministry or department, as the case may be. He is the principal adviser to the minister on all matters of policy and administration within his ministry/department before the parliamentary committee on public accounts.

Special Secretary : There is no clear or well-defined principle or rule underlying the appointment and rank and pay of a special secretary. However, there are a few posts of special secretaries for which pay is determined in each case on merit.

Additional Secretary : The officer next in hierarchy to the secretary was the deputy secretary but in course of time new levels of joint/additional or special secretaries were formed. These posts may have been created originally to relieve the overburdened secretary of some portion of his workload; but more often than not these posts have been created to reward some senior joint secretary by raising both his salary and rank.

Joint Secretary : Where the volume of work in a ministry exceeds the manageable charge of one or more wings, the joint secretary is vested with the maximum measure of independent functioning and responsibility in respect of all business falling within his wing, subject, however, to the general responsibility of the secretary for the administration of the ministry as a whole.

Director : This post is comparatively a new addition and was created in 1960. It is not much different in terms of responsibilities from that of a deputy secretary.

Deputy Secretary : A deputy secretary is an officer who acts on behalf of the secretary. He holds charge of a secretariat division and is responsible for the disposal of government business dealt with under his charge.

Under Secretary : An under secretary is in charge of a branch in a ministry and exercise control both in regard to the despatch of business and the maintenance of discipline.

Officer on Special Duty : This is an old device to accommodate certain persons or to meet unexpected emergency but has been found useful to practising administrators. The post is not indicative of any status.

Office : The permanent office of the Secretariat is an essential component of its functioning. It is very important that an officer should be able to rely on his office to supply him with such materials as he may need and to assist him in preserving continuity of administration. The office consists of section officers, assistants, upper division clerks and lower division clerks, typists, stenographers and Class IV (Gr. D).

The secretariat works as a single unit with collective responsibility, as in the case of the council of ministers. Central Secretariat functions to help the minister so that he can carry out his parliamentary functions and make policies. It is engaged in programme formulation, making rules and principles of procedure, budgeting and control of expenditure with respect to the activities of the ministry/ department, etc.

The Central Secretariat Service serves as the backbone of the administrative work and provides permanent bureaucracy and functionary staff in the Central Government of India. This service is governed by the Central Secretariat Service Rules of 1962, which has been issued under the powers of Article 309 of the Indian Constitution.

The 50 percent of the direct recruitment process between the years 1946 to 2003 was through the Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission, while the next 25 percent was conducted through the Annual Department Examination and the rest was done by promotion. Currently, the mode of recruitment was changed to the grade of Section Officer by way of 50% through Limited Departmental Competitive Examination by Union Public Service Commission and 50% by seniority.