MP promotion process puts ‘demotion’ fears in govt employees

Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh govt’s decision to resume the long-pending promotion process, even as its new promotion rules were challenged in court and are sub judice, has set off anxiety and unease among thousands of state employees, as they fear that they may have to relinquish higher posts that they have been holding for years as an interim arrangement.Promotions in the state’s bureaucratic circles had been stalled since 2016 due to prolonged legal disputes. To ease growing resentment among employees as their promotions continued to hang fire, the govtallowed several departments to give them interim charge of senior posts without formally granting them a raise in rank.Across several departments, employees were given charge of posts that were two levels above their primary posts, as part of a stop-gap arrangement to fill up vacant senior posts.However, with the govt now resuming the stalled promotion process under the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Promotion Rules, 2025, those holding posts two levels over and above their primary ranks now fear falling a level below. If so, they would be moved to a post lower than what they currently occupy.Significantly, however, the 2025 promotion rules, themselves, are currently under court arbitration.If the govt promotes employees under the 2025 rules, those holding higher posts in the interim would drop a post lower after being formally promoted.

Officials in the General Administration Department (GAD) acknowledged the tricky promotion scenario while putting the onus of individual departments to address the issue.The department further admitted that it does not maintain data on employees, who have been assigned posts two levels above their primary positions.Employee unions, however, claimed that the estimated number of such staffers would run into thousands across Madhya Pradesh, raising a larger concern that the resumed promotion process could ironically leave a significant section of the govt’s workforce with a feeling that borders on being demoted.Suggesting an option to navigate the tricky scenario, GAD officials told TOI that depts can promote these employees to the senior posts that they are currently in charge of. This, they said, would ensure that these employees are in charge of a post that is just one notch above their primary posts, as opposed to being two levels up.However, even that arrangement wouldn’t be as simple once these employees get a formal raise in rank.Uma Shankar Tiwari, the state general secretary of Tritya Varg Karamchari Sangh, said under the current arrangement, an employee is given interim charge of a senior post only if it falls vacant. “If they get formally promoted (to posts that they currently hold), the scope of filling up these vacant senior posts will reduce. It would be difficult formany depts, under the current system, to give employees charge of posts that are one or two levels over their primary posts,” he said.Meanwhile, even as several departments were busy implementing the promotion process that had been stalled for 10 years, no one in the secretariat could say form certain that the process won’t hit another roadblock once the pending arbitration on Madhya Pradesh Public Service Promotion Rules, 2025 resumes on July 7 at the high court’s Jabalpur bench.Even as it notified the resumption of the stalled promotion process on Wednesday, the govt clarified that the order would be subject to the final ruling of the Supreme Court and the high court.More than 2 lakh state employees are currently eligible for promotions, while another 1 lakh retired hoping for promotions that never materialised.