The Finance Ministry issued a notification to this effect on June 30. However, the move is not going to hit the Government hard financially as the outgo with all the Ministries put together will be of Rs 1 crore. The demand by the officers of these services could not be met in the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission and it was decided after enough protests were made by the associations of these services that their demands will be looked into later, separately.

Some of the postsof various services thus upgraded are as follows: Indian Civil Accounts Service-3 posts; Indian Cost Accounts Service-5 posts; Indian Customs and Central Excise Service-4 posts; Indian Defence Accounts Service-12 posts; Indian Defence Estates Service-4 posts; Indian Economic Service-3 posts; Indian Information Service- 2 posts; Indian Ordnance Factories Service-11 posts; Indian Postal Service-13 posts; all the various services in the Railways put together-27 posts; Indian Revenue Service-3 posts.

According to sources in the Finance Ministry, since most of these posts are above the rank of the joint secretary, the powerful IAS lobby had so far successfully prevented any such upgradation. Sources said that mostly posts above the rank of joint secretaries are cornered by the IAS people.Since the issue was hanging fire since the time the United Font Government had implemented the Fifth Pay Commission report, the BJP Government by making the move now, has raised many eyebrows. Some observers feel that the moveis aimed at appeasing the large chunk of the bureaucracy whose support is crucial during any election time.

However, sections of the bureaucracy does not link this up with the elections at all. They point out that by taking an early decision on this front the Government has ensured that many officers who have one year of service left, will now retire at a higher grade. However, sources confirmed that once the election code of conduct came into force, the Government could not have effected this change.