Chapter 21 - Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service (AFHQCS) | A Bouquet of Services by IPS Lohit Matani and IPS Vishal - UPSC PDF Download

Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service (AFHQCS)

Contributor: Tanu Jain, AFHQCS 2015 Batch

21.1 Structure and Overview

During World War II, in 1942, civilian employees under different departments and branches of the Armed Forces Headquarters responsible for providing static ancillary services were reorganized and consolidated under one head that was called Chief Administrative Officer (CAO). In 1987, the post of Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), was upgraded to level of a Joint Secretary (JS), under the Defense Secretary, who is the Cadre Controlling Authority and Head of the AFHQ employees.

Joint Secretary (Trg.) & Chief Administrative Officer in the Ministry of Defense is the Cadre Controlling Authority and Head of the Department for AFHQ Civilian employees. The officers join the service as Section Officer (Group B). But they are promoted to Group A scale on completion of 4 years of service only.

21.2    Roles and Responsibilities

An AFHQ Civil Service officer performs the following roles and responsibilities as Section Officers:

I.    General Duties:

The daily tasks of an AFHQ Civil Service Officer include the following general duties like:

1. Officers distribute the work among the civilian staff in the different Armed Forces Headquarters.
2. Officers support in training, helping and advising the staff.
3. They are responsible for the overall management and coordination of work in different Armed Forces Headquarters.
4. They are responsible for maintenance of order and discipline in their sections.

II.   Responsibilities Relating to Dak:

1. Officers go through various receipts and submit receipts which should be seen by the Branch Officer or higher officers at the dak stage.
2. They keep a watch on any hold up in the movement of dak.
3. They scrutinize section diaries once a week to ensure proper functioning in different sections.

III. Responsibilities Relating to Issue of Draft:

1. Officers see whether all corrections have been made in the draft before it is marked for issue.
2. They check whether all enclosures are attached with the draft.
3. They indicate priority marking in drafts.
4. They indicate mode of dispatch.
5. They ensure that the telephone number, fax number and e-mail address of the signing authority have been indicated before the signature.

IV.  Responsibility of Efficient and Expeditious Disposal of Work and Checks on Delays:

1. Officers keep note of important receipts with a view to watching the progress of action.
2. They ensure timely submission of arrears and other returns.
3. They undertake inspection of dealing hands table to ensure that no paper or file has been overlooked.
4. They ensure that cases are not held up at any stage.
5. They go through the list of periodical returns every week and take suitable action on items requiring attention during next week.

V.  Independent Disposal of Cases:

Officers take actions independently on the following:

1. They issue acknowledgements, reminders and other routine communications regarding pending cases.
2. They obtain or s upply factual/ statistical information of a non-classified nature.

VI. Duties in Respect of Recording and Indexing:

1. Officers approve the recording of files and their classification.
2. They review the recorded files before weeding.
3. They order and supervise periodic weeding of unwanted spare copies.
4. They ensure proper maintenance of registers required to be maintained in the section.
5. They deal with important and complicated cases themselves.
6. They ensure strict compliance with Departmental Security Instructions and also with instructions regarding treatment and safeguarding of Classified Documents and record maintenance.

VII.    As a Repository of Information:

Civil Servants of this service have an ample scope of professional development here and they act as a repository of information, which, if mastered, could make them important at professional level. As a repository of information they not only play their role in smooth functioning of various directorates and departments but also enriches themselves with technical and professional know how of things at work. This allows the MOD to function as a seamless whole and provides them to showcase their professional talent and skills.

VIII. Policy making and implementation:

The diverse positions and posts that a civil servant holds in AFHQ during his service life makes him /her the repository of knowledge and information that makes them important at policy making front.

IX. As coordinator and bridge :

At professional level AFHQ civil services acts as a bridge between Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces. This allows for effective and efficient coordination between them and allows for timely decision making.  This also allows for ironing out of differences between MOD and Armed Forces and the grievances are resolved as earlier as possible.

X. As a catalyst:

At professional level, they also play the role of a catalyst which makes decision making process easy and smooth.

21.3 Normal Growth Profile

We will be discussing about the various career opportunities an AFHQ Civil Service Officer has in a separate topic. However, this topic only deals with various ranks an Officer holds during his professional life. These ranks are held when he/ she is working in his/ her main line department.

21.4 Recruitment

The recruitment into AFHQ Civil Service happens through two channels:

1. People are inducted into AFHQ Civil Service after qualifying in the Civil Services Exam conducted by UPSC (50%)
2. The Assistant (Group B, Non-Gazetted) Ministerial Officers are promoted to AFHQ Civil Service (at the rank of Section Officer, Group B) after few years of service (50%).

21.5 Training

The training of AFHQ civil servants is conducted at the Defence Headquarters Training Institute (DHTI). The purposed of the training activities is to train the officer trainees in respect of civilian personnel of AFHQCS working in Service HQs and Inter Service Organizations (ISOs). The institute conducts induction course, refresher courses, specialized courses, workshops and basic courses in computers with a view to enhance knowledge and skill of the officers and employees.

In addition various training courses are conducted at reputed training institutes in the country and abroad.
 

21.6 Variety of Opportunities for AFHQCS Officers

Apart from the usual work profile in the State government, AFHQCS Officers have following opportunities to serve in organizations of State, national as well international level.