Rank holders allege delay in appointments to Kerala Administrative Service

Appointments to 31 vacancies in the Kerala Administrative Service (KAS) are allegedly tangled up in red tape despite the rank list getting published four months ago.

Rank holders allege that the appointments were held up during the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s term due to delays at the Secretariat.

Validity of a year

“The Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) had sent multiple reminders to the government asking it to speed up the procedures. But no steps have been taken. The rank list has a validity of just one year, and four months have already gone. The delay is very worrying for us as the term of the rank list expires on January 30, 2027,” a rank holder told The Hindu.

The successful candidates feel that the influence exerted by a section of employees hostile to KAS appointments and the service organisations representing them too have contributed to the delay.

Due to administrative issues

State government sources, meanwhile, attributed the delay to administrative issues related to the Assembly elections held in April, 2026 and the subsequent formation of the new government.

In 2013, the Oommen Chandy-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government had constituted a committee headed by the then Chief Secretary E.K. Bharat Bhushan to carry out a feasibility study on the KAS. The committee, in its report titled ‘The Case of Kerala Administrative Service,’ recommended that such a service be established on the basis of an Act. “The need to create a State Civil Service by recruiting candidates with adequate educational background in development, administration and technical areas where the new recruits can, through training, be made fit to man middle-level posts in various identified departments, cannot be denied any longer,” the panel noted in its report.

The KAS was established in 2018 during the LDF government’s term. Appointments were made to 105 cadre posts in the first batch in 2021. The present vacancies, and the issues surrounding them, stem from a policy decision taken in 2023 for deputing the KAS officers to various boards and institutions and creating a ‘deputation reserve’ on the lines of the All India Services. This constitutes 30% (31 posts) of the cadre strength of 105. On the strength of this decision, the 31 vacancies were reported to the PSC. But since then, the State government has not formalised the ‘deputation reserve’ through a government order.

The rank holders are hopeful that the new UDF government would speed up their appointments.