What’s in a name? Obviously quite a lot, as far as job designations are concerned. The Government of India has changed the designations of its junior staffers.
Designations like Lower Division Clerk (LDC) and Upper Division Clerk (UDC) under the Central Secretariat Clerical Service will now be consigned to history. These have been rechristened as Junior Secretariat Assistant and Senior Secretariat Assistant respectively, according to an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). Besides, the post of Assistant under Central Secretariat Service has been renamed as Assistant Section Officer.
Earlier in March this year, the DoPT had decided to replace the ‘class’ categorisation for specifying the seniority of its employees with new alphabetical groupings. The posts under the Central Government were denoted as groups A, B, C and D instead of classes I, II, III and IV as in the past. The Class III (now Group C) employees had expressed concern that they were taunted as ‘third-class’ employees due to the categorisation. The Class I (now Group A) classification was for gazetted officers while Class II (now Group B) referred to mainly the non-gazetted officers.
There was a demand raised by staff in 2010 to re-designate the posts of LDC/ UDC and Assistant in Central Secretariat. The Government had asked for suggestions in this regard. These staffers form the backbone of administrative work in the Central Secretariat with a sanctioned strength of over 17,000.