Cadre review

A cadre review is the periodic re-examination, by the Government of India, of the sanctioned strength and grade structure of a central government service, carried out once every five years under Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Office Memorandum No. I-11011/16/2022-CRD dated 30 September 2022 so that the number of posts at each level matches functional need and recruitment, promotion, training and deputation are planned together. For a Central Group A service the review ends in a decision of the Union Cabinet.

The exercise traces to the First Administrative Reforms Commission’s Report on Personnel Administration of 1969, which the government accepted when it constituted the Cadre Review Committee under the Cabinet Secretary by OM No. 5/1/71-PP (Vol VI) dated 6 May 1972. The Department of Personnel and Training is the nodal department, and its Cadre Review Division reported 67 Central Group A services and cadres under its watch in the DoPT Annual Report 2024-25.

The review matters to an individual officer for one reason: a promotion is possible only when a sanctioned post exists in the higher grade. Every promotion at Junior Administrative Grade and above in an Organised Group A Service, and every Central Staffing Scheme empanelment that waits on a grade, depends on the post count the last cadre review fixed. The 7th Central Pay Commission put the grievance at paragraph 1.26 of its report: services complained that cadre reviews “have not taken place for years together”.

Group B and Group C cadres follow a lighter departmental procedure with the Department of Expenditure, while the All India Services are reviewed State by State under rule 4(2) of their Cadre Rules of 1954, and the Central Armed Police Forces review reached the Supreme Court in 2025.

Definition of a cadre and what a review changes

Fundamental Rule 9(4) defines the unit that a review works on: “Cadre means the strength of service or a part of a service sanctioned as” a separate unit. A cadre is therefore a count of sanctioned posts, grade by grade, not a count of people. The Fundamental Rules definition is why a cadre can have vacancies, and why an officer on deputation outside it still holds a lien on a cadre post.

A review can change five things. It can add or abolish posts in a grade, upgrade posts from one grade to the next, fix the reserves (training, leave, deputation and probation), bring isolated ex-cadre posts into the cadre (encadrement) or take them out (decadrement), and set the direct recruitment plan for the next five years. The 29 November 2022 DoPT OM that restates the guidelines lists manpower projection, recruitment planning, training, deputation, encadrement, decadrement, creation of posts and managing reserves as the elements a review covers.

The same OM warns against the narrow reading. It records that cadre management had been “misconstrued” as a process of upgrading, downgrading or creating posts only, and that this had led to distortions in services over time. The 2022 guidelines were issued partly to correct that.

Governing instruments

The table lists the instruments in force for each class of cadre, with the date and what each one fixes.

The 30 September 2022 OM replaced the consolidated guidelines of 14 December 2010 (OM No. I-11011/1/2009-CRD) and 12 other orders, among them OM No. 2/1/87-PP of 23 November 1987 on Group B and C reviews and OM No. I-11019/10/2017-CRD of 9 July 2018. Proposals already before DoPT or already considered by the Cadre Review Committee on that date did not need to be resubmitted. The DoPT Annual Report 2023-24 counts differently: it records that 17 OMs on cadre review and 11 on the Non-Functional Selection Grade were consolidated and published in December 2022, a figure that covers more than the 13 orders the 30 September 2022 OM names as superseded.

The five-year cycle and mid-review changes

Paragraph 4.4(i) of the 2022 OM states: “Every cadre should be reviewed once every five years.” The cadre controlling authority, meaning the Ministry or Department that manages the service, carries out the review first, preferably with the service’s representatives. If it concludes that no change in structure is needed, it conveys that decision to DoPT with the approval of the Minister in charge.

Each Ministry nominates a nodal officer who reports progress to the Cadre Review Division. The Division also issues calendars for overdue reviews. The calendar OM of 26 August 2022 fixed final submission dates and stated that no further request for extension of the date would be entertained. Its annexure shows how far some services had fallen behind: the Central Water Engineering Service was last reviewed in 1991 and had been due since 1996.

Between reviews, the guidelines discourage piecemeal change. Paragraph 4.8 states that “Mid review changes should be avoided as far as possible,” and that ad hoc creation, encadrement or upgradation of posts while a review is due is not supported. Where a proposal cannot wait, it goes to DoPT’s Cadre Review Division first and then to the Department of Expenditure, with the reasons for not waiting, and the OM asks that the new posts conform to the structure the Cadre Review Committee last approved. The rule comes from DoPT OM No. I-11019/17/2016-CRD of 15 February 2017.

Reporting is continuous. Paragraph 4.10 requires a statistical profile of each service as on 1 January and 1 July, reported by 31 July and 31 January. A cadre controlling authority that fails to report gets any request for encadrement, upgradation or creation of posts judged only on the cadre strength last approved by the Committee.

Preparing a cadre review proposal

The proposal is written by the cadre controlling authority “in the form of a Note for Committee of Secretaries”, under paragraph 4.1(i) of the 2022 OM, and follows the model proposal at Annexure III with data in the format of Annexure II. It is to carry:

• a history of the service, its growth in the last reviews and an implementation report on the last review;
• the status of Group B and C cadre reviews in the same Department;
• present and proposed organisation charts, with the posts proposed for upgradation and the justification for each;
• the recruitment rules and service rules as amended to date, for the service and its feeder posts;
• grade-wise seniority lists as on 1 January of the year the proposal is framed;
• inter-ministerial consultations where needed, the financial implications and the approval sought.

The functional test is strict. Paragraph 4.1(iv) states that some increase in work is to be treated as normal, and that “Only perceptible and significant increases in activity should be translated into additional personnel requirements.” Proposals for more posts or new grades may generally be avoided and moved only on stringent functional justification, and the authority is asked to run a zero-base review of existing posts, abolishing or merging any made redundant by technology or a changed mandate. Paragraph 4.1(iii) adds that posts not feasible to fill in the long run are better surrendered.

Two further conditions protect the base of the pyramid. Paragraph 4.1(v) asks that high percentages of senior posts not be created at the cost of lower grades, and paragraph 4.1(vii) states: “It may be ensured that the cadre review would not have an adverse impact on the feeder grade.”

The cost sheet must count more than basic pay. Paragraph 4.3 entertains additional cost “strictly on functional considerations like consistent increase in workload, horizontal expansion in activities”, keeping the Department of Expenditure’s economy instructions in view, asks for the impact of Non-Functional Upgradation, the Non-Functional Selection Grade, Dynamic Assured Career Progression and the Flexible Complementing Scheme to be taken into account wherever they apply, and requires the calculation sheet to be enclosed.

Before sending it on, paragraph 4.2 requires the approval of the Integrated Finance Division and the Minister in charge, a certificate that no court case bearing on the review is pending, and a check against the checklist in section 5 of the Monograph.

Approval chain for a Central Group A service

A Group A cadre review passes through seven stages, grouped here from paragraphs 4.2 and 4.4(iii) to (vi) of DoPT OM No. I-11011/16/2022-CRD dated 30 September 2022. The 7th Central Pay Commission, reporting in 2015 on the older procedure, called the core of it a “four-step process”.

Paragraph 4.4(vii) then states that within three months of the Cabinet’s approval the cadre controlling authority may initiate the amendment of the recruitment rules or service rules that gives effect to the review. The same route applies under paragraph 4.7 to forming a new Group A service, merging services, granting Organised Group A status and declaring a dying cadre. The same paragraph states: “Cadre review does not automatically grant status of Central Group ‘A’ service/cadre or organised status, unless specific approval for it has been obtained during the exercise.”

The Cabinet stage fits the Department of Expenditure’s general rule on posts. Paragraph 3.1 of its OM No. 7(1)/E.Coord-I/2017 dated 5 January 2024 states that “Creation of posts at SAG and above levels [Pay Level-14 and above] shall be submitted to Cabinet in terms of the Transaction of Business Rules 1961”, and paragraph 9.2 states: “Up-gradation of a post is equivalent to creation.” A Group A review that adds or upgrades posts at Senior Administrative Grade therefore needs the Cabinet on that ground as well.

The Cadre Review Committee

The Cadre Review Committee is the inter-departmental body of Secretaries that considers every Central Group A cadre review before it goes to the ministers and the Cabinet. It was constituted in 1972 with the Cabinet Secretary and three Secretaries, and paragraph 4.5 of the 2022 OM now sets five functionaries:

Other officers connected with a proposal may attend as invitees with the approval of the Cabinet Secretariat. The senior-most member of the service is also given a reporting job under paragraph 4.10: that officer may take up with the cadre controlling authority any delay in sending the half-yearly statistical profile.

The Committee met 10 times in 2023, according to paragraph 5.19 of the DoPT Annual Report 2023-24.

Reserve and structural norms

Every Organised Group A Service has two components, regular duty posts and reserves, under the attributes in DoPT OM No. I-11019/12/2008-CRD dated 19 November 2009. The duty posts at Senior Time Scale and above are the Senior Duty Posts. The training, leave and deputation reserves are expressed as percentages of them; the probationary reserve is the probation period multiplied by the batch size.

Reserve ceilings

DoPT OM No. I-11019/2/2013-CRD dated 11 February 2013, restated at paragraph 8.1 of the 2022 Monograph, sets four reserves:

Each figure is a ceiling, not an entitlement. The OM also records that many Organised Group A services had no probationary reserve and were using Junior Time Scale posts for probationers, and it asks for a separate probationary reserve to be created at the next review, so that Junior Time Scale holds only duty posts.

The normative grade structure

The Monograph declines to prescribe a model pyramid. Paragraph 13 states that “functional justifications and not considerations of promotional opportunities play a paramount role in deciding the proportion of posts in different grades in a given cadre.” It does reproduce, at paragraph 18, the structure the 5th Central Pay Commission recommended for every 100 Senior Duty Posts, which DoPT uses as a reference:

The Monograph states that the ceiling of the Non-Functional Selection Grade is 30% of the Senior Duty Posts, meaning posts at Senior Time Scale and above. It also lists the structural ratios the Committee looks at: Junior Administrative Grade to time scale, Junior Administrative Grade and above to time scale, Junior Administrative Grade to total, and Senior Administrative Grade and above to Junior Administrative Grade and to total. The broad expectation is that a direct recruit reaches Senior Time Scale around the fifth or sixth year of service.

Direct recruitment is planned inside the review. A 1998 cap of 3% of cadre strength a year (OM No. 1/8/98-CRD of 5 November 1998) was lifted in 2010, but paragraph 4.9 of the 2022 OM asks for a five-year recruitment plan that aims at “around ideal 3% of the authorized cadre strength per year” and avoids bulk intakes that create a bulge and later stagnation.

Worked example: a service with 200 Senior Duty Posts

The figures below are a salary-calculator.in illustration of how the 2013 reserve ceilings and the 5th CPC reference structure apply to a hypothetical Organised Group A service. They are not the figures of any real service.

The five grade rows add to 200, the Senior Duty Posts. The reserves add 36 posts at the ceilings. If the service also had 40 Junior Time Scale duty posts, its authorised strength would be 276, and the ideal intake of about 3% a year under paragraph 4.9 would be about eight direct recruits. The batch of 10 used for the probationary reserve is then an assumption the real review would reconcile with that recruitment plan.

Effect of a cadre review on promotion and pay

A cadre review changes promotion prospects because promotion is counted against sanctioned posts, not against the people waiting for them. Paragraph 3.11.2 of the DoPT recruitment rules guidelines, OM No. AB.14017/48/2010-Estt.(RR) dated 31 December 2010, sets the feeder grade for a selection post at normally three to five times the sanctioned strength of the higher grade. Adding ten posts at Junior Administrative Grade opens ten more promotions from Senior Time Scale, which a Departmental Promotion Committee can then fill in the vacancy year.

Delay compounds upward. The 7th Central Pay Commission set out the chain at paragraph 7.3.15: promotions take longer and cost pay; a Central Group A officer can be considered for empanelment as Joint Secretary only after reaching Senior Administrative Grade in the cadre, so a late review delays empanelment and a Central Staffing Scheme posting; and the shrinking residual service puts an unintended ceiling on how high an officer in a slow service can rise. The Commission also noted that some regulatory and tribunal posts require experience as Secretary or Additional Secretary, which delayed empanelment rules out.

The pay effect runs through the pay matrix. A post upgraded from Junior Administrative Grade (Level 12) to Senior Administrative Grade (Level 14) in a review lets the officer promoted into it draw Level 14 pay, fixed under Fundamental Rule 22. Non-Functional Upgradation is not a count of posts, but paragraph 4.3 of the 2022 OM still asks for its impact to be taken into account in the review’s cost sheet. The Non-Functional Selection Grade is a count of posts capped at 30% of Senior Duty Posts, so its size moves with the Senior Duty Posts the review fixes.

A cadre review does not change pay scales. The levels come from the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, notified on 25 July 2016 on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission, and the review decides only how many posts sit at each of them.

Cadre review of Group B and Group C posts

Group B and Group C cadres are reviewed by their own cadre controlling authority, not through the Cadre Review Committee. Paragraph 5.1 of the 2022 OM states: “The cadre reviews will be carried out by the CCAs in consultation with the DoE.” A departmental cadre review committee is set up with representatives of the attached or subordinate office, the Integrated Finance Division, the personnel unit and the field organisations.

The principles at paragraph 5.2, carried forward from OM No. 2/1/87-PP of 23 November 1987, differ from the Group A norms in several places:

1. The review is complete manpower planning, covering intake at entry level, maintenance and growth, not only upgradation to create promotional avenues.
2. The structure is to be functional-cum-structural and pyramidal. The OM states: “A structural ratio of 3:1 between two consecutive grades (feeder grade: higher level) is better to fill posts.”
3. Staff Inspection Unit norms are to be applied wherever they exist.
4. The review is periodic and is not to be linked to the level of stagnation in the cadre.
5. Time-bound promotions are to be considered only exceptionally, where the service rules already provide for them.
6. Proliferated grades may be merged.
7. The review may be conducted after every five years; a decision that no change is needed is taken with the departmental committee.
8. The nodal officer reports to DoPT’s Cadre Review Division every year by 31 January.
9. The review cannot create Group A posts or move a cadre from Group B or C to Group A.

DoPT’s role for these cadres is limited to policy, guidelines and monitoring under paragraph 5.3, and any new policy issue in a proposal goes to its Cadre Review Division. The Department of Expenditure’s rule that an upgradation equals creation applies here too, and its post-creation checklist asks for the possibility of matching savings.

Paragraph 6 of the OM deals with isolated posts, where no promotion to the next grade is possible. The authority is to merge them into an existing cadre where the qualifications and duties allow; where that fails, the posts are to be filled by deputation, not direct recruitment, so that the holder does not stagnate.

All India Services cadre review

The Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service have their own statutory review cycle, separate from the DoPT guidelines for central services. Rule 4(2) of the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954 requires the Central Government, ordinarily at an interval of every five years and in consultation with the State Government concerned, to “re-examine the strength and composition of each such cadre”. The IPS (Cadre) Rules, 1954 carry the same five-year duty in their rule 4(2).

The interval was three years. A Government of India decision under rule 4 of the IAS compilation, Ministry of Home Affairs letter No. 6/10/68-AIS(II) dated 27 February 1968, records that “Rule 4 of the Cadre Rules provides for a review of the strength and composition of the cadre at the interval of every three years.” The change to five years came by DoPT Notification No. 11033/7/94-AIS(II)-A dated 10 March 1995. The first proviso keeps the Centre’s power to alter a cadre’s strength at any other time, and the second lets a State Government add temporary posts for limited periods.

The result of an IAS review is a revised State schedule under the IAS (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 1955, made under rule 4(1). Each schedule is built in seven items:

The Andhra Pradesh schedule notified on 18 December 2008 (Notification No. 11031/06/2008-AIS-II(A)) shows the arithmetic: 188 Senior Duty Posts, 75 central deputation, 47 state deputation, 6 training and 31 leave and junior posts, for a total authorised strength of 347, of which 105 were promotion posts and 242 direct recruitment posts. State schedules have been re-notified since; the figures illustrate the method only.

DoPT norms letter No. 11033/3/2002-AIS-II dated 27 January 2005 pegged IAS recruitment at 2.75% to 3.25% of Senior Duty Posts a year and stated that “The norms which are adopted will be reviewed every five years.” The pay level of each cadre post is set separately, in Schedule II of the relevant All India Services pay rules. The DoPT Annual Report 2024-25 lists IAS cadre reviews notified in 2024 for Nagaland and Rajasthan, and IPS reviews for Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra among others.

Central Armed Police Forces cadre review

The Group A general duty cadres of the five Central Armed Police Forces are reviewed through the Cadre Review Committee: Annexure IV to the 2022 OM lists the General Duty Group A cadres of the ITBP, CISF, BSF, CRPF and SSB, and their medical cadres, among the services it covers. DoPT OM dated 12 July 2019 records those five cadres and the Railway Protection Force as Organised Group A Services for cadre review and related matters.

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police review shows what a Cabinet decision in this route contains. The Cabinet approved it on 23 October 2019, raising the Group A general duty strength from 1,147 to 1,207 posts: a net increase of two Additional Director General, 10 Inspector General, 10 Deputy Inspector General, 13 Commandant, 16 Second-in-Command and nine Deputy Commandant posts, plus two Inspector General posts in the non-general duty cadre and two new Commands at Chandigarh and Guwahati.

The next review became a court matter. In Sanjay Prakash v. Union of India, 2025 INSC 779, decided on 23 May 2025, the Supreme Court directed that the cadre review due in 2021 be carried out within six months, that the Ministry of Home Affairs review each force’s service and recruitment rules within six months, and that deputation posts up to Senior Administrative Grade be progressively reduced within two years. Counted from the date of judgment, those deadlines ran to 23 November 2025 and 23 May 2027.

On 25 March 2026 the Central Armed Police Forces (General Administration) Bill, 2026, Bill No. XLI of 2026, was published in the Gazette as introduced in the Rajya Sabha. Clause 3(1) empowers the Central Government to make rules on recruitment, promotion and deputation notwithstanding “any judgment, decree or order of any court”, Its second proviso requires those rules to fill 50% of Inspector General posts and at least 67% of Additional Director General posts by deputation of IPS officers, and its third proviso fills Special Director General and Director General posts by deputation only. The text described here is the Bill as introduced; no enactment of it has been verified for this article.

The 7th Pay Commission on cadre review delays

The 7th Central Pay Commission treated delayed cadre reviews as a service-wide grievance. At paragraph 7.3.12 it recorded: “Extant instructions are that a cadre review should be undertaken at least once in a period of five years.” DoPT told the Commission (paragraph 7.3.13) that the main reason for delay was non-submission of proposals by cadre controlling authorities, and supplied data as on 15 February 2015 showing 20 proposals pending in the process and 10 cadres whose reviews had been pending for more than ten years, some more than 20 years (paragraph 7.3.14).

Paragraph 7.3.16 found that every stage was prone to delay and that no single agency was accountable, and noted the Second Administrative Reforms Commission’s proposal for a Cadre Restructuring Commission. The Pay Commission rejected a new agency at paragraph 7.3.17. It recommended that the cadre review be the responsibility of the Secretary of the Department to which the cadre belongs, not of the Secretary, DoPT, and that the proposal be examined at department level with one member each from DoPT and the Department of Expenditure, before going to the Cadre Review Committee. At paragraphs 11.40.18 and 11.40.19 it asked for the same change in the Ministry of Railways “right away”, after railway officers described a review that had run for nearly two years.

The 2022 guidelines did not adopt that structure: DoPT still examines the proposal, the Department of Expenditure still approves it separately, and the Committee then considers it. The 2022 OM relies on monitoring instead: nodal officers in each Ministry, DoPT calendars for overdue reviews and the half-yearly statistical profile.

Recent cadre reviews approved

DoPT’s Cadre Review Division reports its output in chapter 5 of each annual report. The figures below come from paragraph 5.19 of the reports for 2023-24 and 2024-25, which cover calendar years 2023 and 2024.

The 2024-25 report states that overall pendency had come down from around 25 to 30 a few years earlier to seven. The Indian Radio Regulatory Service appears as a Cabinet approval in both reports. The 2018-19 report, before the current guidelines, recorded 25 services identified as due in 2018 and pendency that in some cases exceeded 40 years.

The Central Secretariat Service follows a separate track. DoPT is its cadre controlling authority through the CS Division, and its structure has been changed by cadre restructuring committees: the third reported under OM No. 19/3/2013-CS-I(P) dated 10 October 2017, and a fourth was constituted by Order No. 19/02/2022-CS.I(P) dated 27 October 2022.

Common misreadings of cadre review

A cadre review is not an upgradation exercise. The 2022 guidelines require a zero-base review of existing posts, and a review can abolish, merge or surrender posts as well as add them.

A promotion rule and a cadre review answer different questions. The review decides how many posts exist in a grade; the recruitment rules decide who is eligible to fill them and by which method, and the Modified Assured Career Progression scheme pays a financial upgrade where no post opens.

Related Articles

• Promotion in central government service
• Organised Group A Services
• Non-functional upgradation
• Non-Functional Selection Grade
• Departmental Promotion Committee
• Recruitment rules
• Seniority
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Department of Expenditure
• Cabinet Secretary
• Cabinet Secretariat
• Central Staffing Scheme
• Empanelment
• Deputation in central government
• Lien
• Fundamental Rules
• Pay matrix
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 5th Central Pay Commission
• Modified Assured Career Progression
• MACP vs promotion
• All India Services
• All India Services pay rules
• Indian Administrative Service
• Indian Police Service
• Indian Forest Service
• IAS salary
• Central Armed Police Forces
• Railway Protection Force
• Ministry of Home Affairs
• Central Secretariat Service
• Indian Revenue Service
• Direct recruitment
• Higher Administrative Grade

External references

• DoPT OM dated 29 November 2022, Cadre review of central civil services: https://doptcirculars.nic.in/OM/ViewOM.aspx?id=323&headid=16
• DoPT Cadre Review Division: https://persmin.gov.in/DOPT/CSWing/CRDivision/4.1.html
• IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, DoPT consolidated text: https://dopt.gov.in/sites/default/files/Revised_AIS_Rule_Vol_II_IAS_Rule_01_0.pdf
• Report of the 7th Central Pay Commission, Department of Expenditure: https://doe.gov.in/files/cenetral-pay_document/7cpc_report_eng.pdf
• Cabinet approval of the ITBP Group A cadre review, 23 October 2019: https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/cabinet-approves-cadre-review-of-group-a-general-duty-executive-cadre-and-non-gd-cadre-of-indo-tibetan-border-police-itbp/
• DoPT circulars portal: https://doptcirculars.nic.in/

References

1. Department of Personnel and Training OM No. I-11011/16/2022-CRD dated 30 September 2022, Consolidated guidelines on cadre review of Central Civil Services, with Annexure I (Monograph on cadre review, 2022) and Annexure IV (services reviewed through the Cadre Review Committee).
2. Department of Personnel and Training OM No. DOPT-1669804026297 dated 29 November 2022, Cadre review of central civil services.
3. Department of Personnel and Training OM No. I-11019/2/2013-CRD dated 11 February 2013, norms for reserves in Organised Group A Central Services.
4. Department of Personnel and Training OM No. I-11019/12/2008-CRD dated 19 November 2009, attributes of Organised Group A Services.
5. Department of Personnel and Training OM No. I-11019/18/2022-CRD dated 26 August 2022, calendar for cadre review of Central Group A services.
6. IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954 and IPS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, rule 4(2), as amended by Notification No. 11033/7/94-AIS(II)-A dated 10 March 1995; IAS (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 1955.
7. Department of Expenditure OM No. 7(1)/E.Coord-I/2017 dated 5 January 2024, paragraphs 3.1 and 9.2.
8. Report of the 7th Central Pay Commission (19 November 2015), paragraphs 1.26, 7.3.12 to 7.3.17 and 11.40.18 to 11.40.19.
9. Sanjay Prakash v. Union of India, 2025 INSC 779, Supreme Court of India, 23 May 2025.
10. Department of Personnel and Training Annual Reports 2023-24 and 2024-25, paragraph 5.19.