Organised Group A Services

Organised Group A Services, formally the Organised Group ‘A’ Central Services, are the Central Group A civil services of the Government of India that the government has consciously constituted as organised: each has a full grade ladder from Junior Time Scale at Level 10 of the pay matrix to at least the Senior Administrative Grade at Level 14, fills half or more of its entry grade by direct recruitment, promotes grade by grade above that, and carries its own reserves. The attributes are set out in Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Office Memorandum No. I-11019/12/2008-CRD dated 19 November 2009.

The status decides pay. Among the central services, only an officer of an organised service draws non-functional upgradation, the pay of a higher grade granted when an Indian Administrative Service batch two or more years junior is posted at the centre in that grade, and only an organised service has the Non-Functional Selection Grade at Level 13 for up to 30% of its senior duty posts. The same officers are excluded from the Modified Assured Career Progression scheme that covers every other regularly appointed civilian employee.

DoPT has published no notified register of these services. Its most recent list is a draft circulated with OM No. I-11019/5/2017-CRD dated 3 April 2017, which counted 61 Central Group A services and declared 52 of them organised. Two changes since then moved the count in opposite directions: the Group A executive cadres of five Central Armed Police Forces and the Railway Protection Force were treated as organised from July 2019, after the Supreme Court’s judgment in Union of India v. Harananda, and eight organised railway services were merged into the Indian Railway Management Service in February 2022.

The organised services sit beside the All India Services, which are a separate category under the All India Services Act, 1951, and the Indian Foreign Service, which is the first entry on the organised list. This article covers the definition and its source, how a service acquires the status, the 2017 list and what has changed, the grade and pay structure, the reserves, the benefits that attach to the status, the 6th and 7th Pay Commission positions, the armed police cases and the railway merger.

Definition and source of the term

An Organised Group A Service is defined by an executive order, not by a statute or a rule. The defining instrument is DoPT OM No. I-11019/12/2008-CRD dated 19 November 2009, on the attributes of Organised Group ‘A’ Central Services, issued by the Cadre Review Division because service associations had filed applications in various courts claiming the status and the difference between an organised service and other services had not been appreciated. The OM restates attributes already laid down in DoPT’s monograph on cadre management. It does not create them.

The 2009 OM is now reproduced word for word as paragraph 3.6.1 of DoPT’s consolidated cadre review OM dated 29 November 2022, and its substance appears as paragraph 22 of the 2022 Monograph, which is Annexure-I to OM No. I-11011/16/2022-CRD dated 30 September 2022. The earlier Monograph, “Cadre Review of Group ‘A’ Central Services, A Monograph (2010)”, was issued with OM No. I-11011/1/2009-CRD dated 14 December 2010 and printed the attributes OM as its Appendix-I.

The Group A classification predates the status. Rule 4 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 divides the civil services of the Union into Groups A to D, and Rule 6 classifies civil posts into the same groups by Presidential order. “Organised” is a further status inside Group A. No rule in the CCS (CCA) Rules uses the word.

The six attributes

DoPT OM No. I-11019/12/2008-CRD dated 19 November 2009 lists six attributes. The OM states the grades in 6th CPC pay-band and grade-pay terms, and the 2022 restatement keeps that wording; the Level column below is the mapping DoPT itself uses in Annexure-V to the cadre review OM of 30 September 2022.

Two qualifications sit in the same OM and govern how the list is read. A note says the existing organised services evolved over time and “may have minor deviations owing to their respective functional requirements”, and that “The services already declared as such need not, however, be reviewed.” The closing paragraph then says that nothing suggests a service meeting the criteria would automatically receive the status. The attributes describe the organised services; they are not a test that a service can pass to claim the status.

Attribute (iii) is what separates an organised service from a promotion cadre. A Group A cadre whose entry grade is filled mostly by promotion from Group B, such as the Central Secretariat Service, fails it. The 50% figure is a floor. The Indian Revenue Service fills half of each Assistant Commissioner intake by promotion and half by direct recruitment through the Civil Services Examination.

How a service acquires organised status

A service becomes organised only by a government decision, taken through the cadre review procedure and ending in a Union Cabinet approval. The 19 November 2009 OM says an Organised Group A Service “is one which is constituted consciously as such by the Cadre Controlling Authorities and such a service can be constituted only through the established procedures”. Paragraph 3(i) of DoPT OM No. I-11019/5/2017-CRD dated 3 April 2017 names the procedure: “The procedure of declaring a service as Organised Service is same as that of Cadre Review.”

The steps are those of a cadre review of a Central Group A service under DoPT OM No. I-11011/16/2022-CRD dated 30 September 2022:

1. The cadre controlling Ministry prepares the proposal as a note for the Committee of Secretaries, with the approval of its Integrated Finance Division and its Minister.
2. DoPT’s Cadre Review Division and the Department of Expenditure examine it.
3. The Cadre Review Committee, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary with the Secretaries of the controlling Ministry, DoPT and Expenditure and the senior-most member of the service, recommends it.
4. The Minister of State for Personnel and the Finance Minister approve, and the Ministry takes it to the Cabinet.

Paragraph 4.7 of the 2022 OM rules out status by cadre review alone. A cadre review does not by itself grant organised status “unless specific approval for it has been obtained during the exercise”, and the proposal for status may be moved with the cadre review or separately. A service whose cadre review has added Senior Administrative Grade posts and brought its structure in line with all six attributes is still not organised until the Cabinet decision says so.

The Supreme Court added one limit in Union of India v. Harananda, (2019) 14 SCC 126, decided on 5 February 2019 by Rohinton F. Nariman and M. R. Shah JJ.: a pay commission has no authority to define an organised service or to confer the status, so the 6th Central Pay Commission’s description of a service did not decide whether it was organised.

The 2017 list of Organised Group A Services

The most recent DoPT list is Annexure-II to OM No. I-11019/5/2017-CRD dated 3 April 2017, signed by Manoj Gupta, Under Secretary in the Cadre Review Division, and circulated to Ministries for comment as a draft. Paragraph 2 of the OM records that the list of 14 December 2010 had 58 Central Group A services, “(Now these are 61, out of which 52 Services are declared as Organised)”. Paragraph 4 says the annexed list is “subject to outcome of various court cases pending on the subject”, and a further OM of the same number dated 25 May 2017 extended the deadline for comments to 15 June 2017. No final version has been issued. Earlier lists of organised services were issued by DoPT OMs dated 31 July 1982, 11 April 1986 and 16 July 1990.

DoPT groups the 61 services in four categories. The table gives them in DoPT’s order, with the names lightly normalised; the nine marked non-organised are the 61 minus 52 that paragraph 2 counts.

The draft carries no column for the cadre controlling Ministry. The Central Health Service is listed by its general duty cadre only.

Changes after the 2017 draft

Every change since April 2017 comes from a separate instrument, and DoPT has not restated the total.

Two services created by the Cabinet around the same period are not on the 2017 list and their Cabinet releases do not call them organised: the Indian Enterprise Development Service under the Ministry of MSME, approved on 21 December 2016, whose first 65 direct recruits were inducted on 6 October 2025, and the Indian Petroleum and Explosives Safety Service, approved on 2 May 2018 for the technical cadre of the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation.

Lists that are not the organised list

Three other counts are often quoted as the number of organised services, and none of them is.

• The cadre review list. Annexure-IV to the cadre review OM of 30 September 2022 names 52 services and cadres, grouped by Ministry, plus eight dying or transferred services. It is headed “This list is only for the purpose of cadre review”, and it carries the four CAPF medical cadres alongside the five general duty cadres.
• The 7th CPC’s 49. Paragraph 7.3.25(b) of the 7th Central Pay Commission report says “A cursory look at the list of 49 Organised Group” A services. The sentence is Member Vivek Rae’s, in his note of dissent on non-functional upgradation, and is not a finding of the Commission.
• The Central Staffing Scheme’s 34. Appendix-IV to DoPT’s nomination circular of 17 December 2024 lists 38 services that may send officers to the Central Staffing Scheme, 34 of them organised Group A central services. That is the count of participating services only.

The DoPT Annual Report 2024-25 puts 67 Central Group A services and cadres under the watch of the Cadre Review Division, a figure that covers non-organised cadres as well.

Group A, Organised Group A and General Central Service

Group A is a classification of posts by pay; Organised Group A is a status of a service. DoPT order S.O. 3964(E) dated 9 August 2018, made under the proviso to Article 309 read with Rule 6 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, classifies “all civil posts under the Union”, and defines a Group A post as “A Central Civil Post carrying the pay in the Pay Matrix at the Level from 10 to 18.” Group B is Levels 6 to 9 and Group C is Levels 1 to 5. The order superseded S.O. 3578(E) dated 9 November 2017.

Every officer of an organised service holds a Group A post, but the reverse does not hold. A Level 10 to 18 post can sit in three places:

• In an organised service, such as the Indian Revenue Service or the Indian Audit and Accounts Service, where the post belongs expressly to the service under its service rules.
• In a Group A cadre that is not organised. The Central Secretariat Service is the largest: rule 3 of the Central Secretariat Service Rules, 2009 classifies Grade I and above as Group A, yet the service is not on DoPT’s organised list and its officers draw neither non-functional upgradation nor the Non-Functional Selection Grade.
• Outside any service, as a General Central Service post. These are isolated Group A posts filled under their own recruitment rules. Attribute (v) of the 2009 OM bars an organised service from containing any of them.

The All India Services, the IAS, the Indian Police Service and the Indian Forest Service, are outside the classification. They are governed by the All India Services Act, 1951 and their own rules, serve the Union and the States, and are not on the organised list, though the two-batch rule for non-functional upgradation is measured against IAS postings at the centre and the IPS and IFoS draw the same benefit under their own pay rules.

Grade structure and pay levels

An organised service climbs eight grades from Level 10 to Level 17 of the pay matrix under the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016. DoPT’s Annexure-V to OM No. I-11011/16/2022-CRD dated 30 September 2022 pairs each level with its 6th CPC scale. The Non-Functional Selection Grade at Level 13 is the ‘JAG/NFSG’ grade pay of Rs. 8,700 in the 2009 attributes OM, and Schedule I of the Indian Railway Management Service (Group ‘A’) Rules, 2022 names it at Level 13. The entry pay is the first cell of each level.

Level 18, Rs. 2,50,000, is Group A under S.O. 3964(E) but sits above the Apex grade of every organised service. Annexure-V also lists Level 13A, the 6th CPC grade pay of Rs. 8,900, under its Junior Administrative Grade heading; no organised service grade is named for it.

Gross pay adds dearness allowance at 60% of basic pay, house rent allowance and transport allowance to these figures. A Junior Time Scale officer at Level 10 draws the same basic pay in every organised service. Differences between services arise later, from the number of posts at each higher grade, which the cadre review fixes, and so from how fast an officer is promoted.

Schedule I of the Indian Railway Management Service (Group ‘A’) Rules, 2022 shows the shape for one service. It sanctions 450 Junior Time Scale posts, 1,395 Senior Time Scale posts, 791 Senior Administrative Grade posts, 139 Higher Administrative Grade posts, 59 HAG+ posts and seven Apex posts at Level 17, and allows the Non-Functional Selection Grade up to 30% of posts of Senior Time Scale and above.

Reserves in an organised service

An organised service is expected to carry four reserves in addition to its regular duty posts. Attribute (vi) of the 2009 OM names them as probationary, leave, training and deputation reserves, usually created and accounted for in the Junior Time Scale. Paragraph 3.9 of the 2022 consolidated OM, carrying forward DoPT OM No. I-11019/2/2013-CRD dated 11 February 2013, says organised services “should have all the four types of Reserves”, and records that a number of them “do not have probationary reserves” and use Junior Time Scale strength for the purpose.

The OM says cadre controlling authorities “may keep these norms in view while formulating proposals for cadre review”, so the figures guide a review; they are not a cap fixed by rule. The reserves are the reason a cadre review proposal can add Junior Time Scale posts without adding duties: they cover officers on training, leave and deputation so that the duty posts stay filled. The All India Services use a different reserve: the IAS (Fixation of Cadre Strength) Regulations, 1955 allow a central deputation reserve of up to 40% of senior duty posts.

Benefits that attach to organised status

Two career provisions are confined to the organised services among the central services, two more are shared with other Central Group A cadres, and one general scheme excludes the organised services.

Non-functional upgradation. DoPT OM No. AB.14017/64/2008-Estt.(RR) dated 24 April 2009, consolidated in OM No. AB-14017/13/2022-Estt.(RR) dated 15 September 2022, gives an officer of an organised service the pay of a grade, without the post, once the first officer of an IAS batch two or more years junior is posted at the centre in that grade. A screening committee replaces the departmental promotion committee, and the officer keeps the same post and duties.

Non-Functional Selection Grade. DoPT OM No. 22/1/2000-CRD dated 6 June 2000 created a selection grade at Level 13, carved out of the cadre and capped at 30% of senior duty posts, reached on entering the 14th year of service and filled by seniority subject to rejection of the unfit. The grade exists only in the organised services.

Cadre review through the Cadre Review Committee. Shared with other Central Group A cadres. A Central Group A service or cadre, organised or not, is reviewed by the committee chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, with a Cabinet decision at the end; Annexure-IV to the 2022 OM includes non-organised cadres such as the CAPF medical cadres. Group B and C cadres are reviewed by the Ministry with the Department of Expenditure under paragraph 5 of the 2022 OM.

The Central Staffing Scheme. Shared with services outside the class. Thirty-four organised services are among the 38 that supply officers to Deputy Secretary, Director and Joint Secretary posts in the Ministries under DoPT’s circular of 17 December 2024. An officer posted at Under Secretary, Deputy Secretary or Director level may draw the Central (Deputation on Tenure) Allowance of 10% of basic pay under DoPT OM No. 2/10/2017-Estt.(Pay II) dated 24 April 2018, subject to a ceiling of Rs. 9,000 from 1 July 2017 that an OM of the same number dated 4 June 2025 raises by 25% each time dearness allowance rises by 50%.

Exclusion from MACP. The Modified Assured Career Progression scheme of DoPT OM No. 35034/3/2008-Estt.(D) dated 19 May 2009, continued by OM No. 35034/3/2015-Estt.(D) dated 22 October 2019, gives three financial upgradations at 10, 20 and 30 years to Group A, B and C civilian employees, and excludes officers of the Organised Group A Services. An officer of a non-organised Group A cadre is in the opposite position: MACP applies, non-functional upgradation does not.

The 6th and 7th Pay Commissions on the organised services

The 6th Central Pay Commission created non-functional upgradation for the organised services. Paragraph 3.3.12 of its 2008 report recommended that when an IAS batch is posted at the centre in a grade, officers of the organised services from batches two or more years senior get that grade’s scale on a non-functional, personal basis. The report described the result as “modified parity” with the IAS, the gap being held to two years. The government implemented it by the DoPT OM of 24 April 2009.

The 7th Central Pay Commission, which reported in November 2015, could not agree on the organised services, and its paragraphs carry the names of the Members who wrote them.

Paragraphs 7.2.16 and 7.3.8 record the central services’ contention that the edge was “iniquitous”, since the Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission is common to around 18 Group A services and the choice of service turns on many factors besides rank. Paragraph 14 of Ministry of Finance Resolution No. 1-2/2016-IC dated 25 July 2016 kept the existing position on non-functional upgradation, the two-year edge in Central Staffing Scheme empanelment and the extra increments pending a separate administrative decision, and the DoPT OM of 24 April 2009 remains the operative order, consolidated in 2022.

The Central Armed Police Forces cases

The Group A executive cadres of the Central Reserve Police Force, Border Security Force, Central Industrial Security Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Sashastra Seema Bal reached organised status through litigation. The 2017 DoPT draft list showed all five, with the Railway Protection Force, as non-organised.

The sequence runs through four decisions:

1. 3 September 2015. The Delhi High Court allowed the officers’ writ petitions in G.J. Singh v. Union of India and directed the government to grant non-functional financial upgradation within eight weeks.
2. 5 February 2019. The Supreme Court dismissed the Union’s appeals in Union of India v. Harananda, (2019) 14 SCC 126. It gave little weight to strict compliance with the six attributes because the 2009 OM itself permits minor deviations; it held that the government had recorded the BSF and CRPF as organised services in its own monographs of 1986, 1993 and 2010 and could not reverse that position; and it held that a pay commission cannot confer or deny the status.
3. 4 and 12 July 2019. DoPT conveyed non-functional financial upgradation to the CAPF Group A executive cadres with effect from 1 January 2006 and the Non-Functional Selection Grade at 30% of senior duty posts with effect from 6 June 2000, and its OM of 12 July 2019 recorded the five cadres and the Railway Protection Force as Organised Group A Services for cadre review and related matters.
4. 23 May 2025. In Sanjay Prakash v. Union of India, 2025 INSC 779, Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan JJ. held at paragraph 43 that the 12 July 2019 OM made the forces Organised Group A Services for all purposes, so the government could not grant the pay benefit and deny the rest. The court directed that the cadre review due in 2021 be completed within six months and that deputation posts up to the Senior Administrative Grade be progressively reduced within two years.

The Central Armed Police Forces (General Administration) Bill, 2026, Bill No. XLI of 2026, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 25 March 2026. It does not use the words “Organised Group A”. As introduced, it would regulate the “Group A General Duty Officers” of the forces notwithstanding any court judgment or order, fix Indian Police Service deputation at 50% of Inspector General posts and at least 67% of Additional Director General posts, and fill the Special Director General and Director General posts by deputation only.

The Indian Railway Management Service

The Indian Railway Management Service is the largest change to the organised list since 2017. The Union Cabinet approved unification of eight railway Group A services, at all levels from Junior Scale to HAG+, in a decision announced by the Press Information Bureau on 27 December 2019, with 27 General Manager posts upgraded to the apex grade.

The Ministry of Railways notified the Indian Railway Management Service (Group ‘A’) Rules, 2022 as G.S.R. 119(E) dated 15 February 2022 under the proviso to Article 309. Rule 3(1) reads: “An Organised Service known as the Indian Railway Management Service consisting of persons appointed to the Service under rule 6 shall stand constituted with the notification of these rules.” Rule 6(1) fills 50% of the Junior Time Scale by direct recruitment and 50% by promotion, rule 11 restates non-functional upgradation against IAS postings at the centre with the two-year rule, and rule 12 applies to any matter the rules do not cover the conditions applicable to officers of the Organised Group A Central Services.

An amendment notified as G.S.R. 627(E) dated 9 October 2024 defined a “sub-cadre” as “any of the eight streams of the Service, namely, Traffic, Accounts, Personnel, Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Signal and Telecommunication and Stores”, and moved direct recruitment for the five engineering sub-cadres to the Engineering Services Examination, keeping the Civil Services Examination for Traffic, Personnel and Accounts. It also raised the Higher Administrative Grade to 345 posts, the Senior Administrative Grade to 1,333 and the Non-Functional Selection Grade to 3,270. Under the same Ministry, the Railway Protection Force Group A cadre, organised since July 2019, stays outside the IRMS.

Common errors about the organised services

• That meeting the six attributes confers the status. The 19 November 2009 OM says it does not. A Cabinet decision through the cadre review procedure is required.
• That every Group A officer is in an organised service. S.O. 3964(E) makes a post Group A by its pay level alone. Central Secretariat Service officers at Level 11 and above are Group A and not organised.
• That the All India Services are organised Group A services. The IAS, IPS and IFoS are a separate category under the All India Services Act, 1951, and appear on no DoPT organised list.
• That 49, 34 or 67 is the number of organised services. Those are the 7th CPC dissent’s figure, the Central Staffing Scheme’s participating services and the Cadre Review Division’s portfolio. DoPT’s own most recent count is 52, in the draft of 3 April 2017.
• That the 7th CPC recommended withdrawing non-functional upgradation. Two Members did; the Chairman recommended continuing and extending it.
• That the CAPFs were organised only for pay. The Supreme Court held in May 2025 that the 12 July 2019 OM made them organised for all purposes.

Related Articles

• Non-functional upgradation
• Non-Functional Selection Grade
• Cadre review
• Central Staffing Scheme
• Modified Assured Career Progression
• All India Services
• Indian Administrative Service
• Indian Police Service
• Indian Forest Service
• Indian Foreign Service
• Indian Revenue Service
• Indian Railway Management Service
• Indian Civil Accounts Service
• Central Health Service
• Central Armed Police Forces
• Central Reserve Police Force
• Railway Protection Force
• Central Secretariat Service
• Civil Services Examination
• UPSC Engineering Services Examination
• Union Public Service Commission
• Recruitment rules
• Direct recruitment
• Promotion
• Departmental promotion committee
• Higher Administrative Grade
• Empanelment
• Deputation in central government
• Pay matrix
• Salary by pay level
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965
• Article 309
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Department of Expenditure
• 6th Central Pay Commission
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• Dearness allowance

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training, Cadre Review Division
• DoPT OM No. I-11019/5/2017-CRD dated 3 April 2017, updation of the list of Central Group A services
• S.O. 3964(E) dated 9 August 2018, classification of central civil posts (Gazette of India)
• Press Information Bureau release on the unification of railway services, 27 December 2019
• Department of Expenditure, 7th Central Pay Commission report and orders
• Indian Railways, Ministry of Railways

References

1. Department of Personnel and Training, OM No. I-11019/12/2008-CRD dated 19 November 2009, attributes of Organised Group ‘A’ Central Services.
2. Department of Personnel and Training, OM No. I-11019/5/2017-CRD dated 3 April 2017, updation of the list of Central Group ‘A’ Civil Services, with the draft list at Annexure-II; OM of the same number dated 25 May 2017.
3. Department of Personnel and Training, OM No. I-11011/16/2022-CRD dated 30 September 2022, cadre review guidelines and the 2022 Monograph (Annexure-I), cadre review list (Annexure-IV) and statistical profile format (Annexure-V); consolidated OM dated 29 November 2022.
4. Department of Personnel and Training, OM No. I-11019/2/2013-CRD dated 11 February 2013, reserve norms for Organised Group ‘A’ Central Services.
5. Department of Personnel and Training, Order S.O. 3964(E) dated 9 August 2018, classification of central civil posts, superseding S.O. 3578(E) dated 9 November 2017.
6. Department of Personnel and Training, OM No. AB.14017/64/2008-Estt.(RR) dated 24 April 2009 and OM No. AB-14017/13/2022-Estt.(RR) dated 15 September 2022, non-functional upgradation; OM No. 22/1/2000-CRD dated 6 June 2000, Non-Functional Selection Grade; OM No. 35034/3/2008-Estt.(D) dated 19 May 2009, Modified Assured Career Progression.
7. Report of the Sixth Central Pay Commission (2008), paragraph 3.3.12; Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (November 2015), paragraphs 7.2.15 to 7.2.24 and 7.3.18 to 7.3.26.
8. Ministry of Railways, Indian Railway Management Service (Group ‘A’) Rules, 2022, G.S.R. 119(E) dated 15 February 2022, as amended by G.S.R. 627(E) dated 9 October 2024.
9. Union of India v. Harananda, (2019) 14 SCC 126, decided 5 February 2019; Sanjay Prakash v. Union of India, 2025 INSC 779, decided 23 May 2025.
10. Department of Personnel and Training, OM dated 12 July 2019, Railway Protection Force and Central Armed Police Force Group A executive cadres treated as Organised Group A Services.