Govt to rename clerical post to boost staff morale

Clerks will not be clerks anymore! The government is planning to change the designations of clerical staff in central government, which is likely to give the officers a sense of empowerment as well as prestige.

As per the proposal prepared by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), an Assistant in Central Secretariat Service (CSS) will be known as Assistant Section Officer.
The Upper Division Clerk (UDC) in the Central Secretariat Clerical Service (CSCS) will be known as Senior Secretariat Assistant and Lower Division Clerk  (LDC) will be known as Junior Secretariat Assistant. The total sanctioned strength of CSS and CSCS is 11,467 and 5,933 respectively.

Concerned departments and stakeholders have been asked to submit their views on the issue by September 18.

An LDC is ordinarily entrusted with work of routine nature like registration of letters, file register, file movement register, typing, dispatch and maintenance of circulars and registers. An UDC or Assistant have a slightly bigger profile. The proposal for change in nomenclature is initiated in a bid to enhance the morale of workforce due to the stigma attached to clerical jobs as they face taunts.

“It is a good move. But it should not end here. The problem is that there is change in nomenclature but there is no change in work culture,” a senior government official said.
The official pointed out the change in nomenclature of Class IV employees to multi-tasking staff but the nature of job did not change.

“The change in names did not help them in enhancing their skills. That is a problem. The administrative structural deficiencies remained,” the official said.

The government had, in March, changed the “class” categorisation for specifying the seniority of its employees with alphabetical groupings.

While it was classified into I, II, III and IV group services, it was changed into A, B, C and D. The Class-III, in which clerks belonged to, had expressed concern that they are taunted as “third-class” employees due to the categorisation.