Want CSS officers on deputation? Centre asks West Bengal and Uttarakhand govts

THE Centre has mooted the idea of sending officers belonging to Central Secretariat Service (CSS) to states such as West Bengal and Uttarakhand where there has been an acute shortage of officers at the middle level due to low intake of civil servants between 1992 to 2006. In two separate letters dated November 14 (the content being the same) DoPT secretary Sanjay Kothari wrote to
…West Bengal chief secretary Sanjay Mitra and Uttarakhand chief secretary N Ravi Shankar that “the state government may like to utilize the experiences of the CSS officers at appropriate level on deputation basis”. The letters said: “The arrangement will enrich the officers with the required field experience at the ground level in the execution of various schemes and policies and make them understand issues in a better way which will in turn will improve their capacities.”
The DoPT secretary said, in case the state governments were willing to take
CSS officers on deputation, it may identify the vacancies and tenure of posting and inform DoPT accordingly. The DoPT will then circulate the vacancies among the CSS officers and nominate a panel of selected officers for deputation to state government. “…and you may choose the suitable officer from the panel”, the letter said.
In fact, CSS is one of the earliest organised services in the country which has a huge contribution in the functioning of the Central government machinery. They are usually posted in Delhi, and they provide a permanent set-up of middle level functionaries to the Government of India.
Currently, there are about 2200 CSS officers in the Group “A” category. They serve as under secretaries, deputy secretaries, directors and joint secretaries.