Rotational Transfer Policy (RTP) for Central Secretariat Service (CSS) – DoP&T O.M. dated 08.05.2026

Rotational Transfer Policy (RTP) for Central Secretariat Service (CSS) – DoP&T O.M. dated 08.05.2026

No. 01/01/2025-CS.I(P)
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
Department of Personnel & Training

2nd Floor, Lok Nayak Bhawan, Khan Market
New Delhi, Dated the 08th May, 2026

OFFICE MEMORANDUM

Sub: Rotational Transfer Policy (RTP) for Central Secretariat Service (CSS).

The undersigned is directed to refer to the subject mentioned above and issue the attached Rotational Transfer Policy (RTP) for the Central Secretariat Service (CSS), with the approval of Competent Authority. The revised policy shall be applicable/effective from the date of issuance.

(L. Raghavendran)
Under Secretary to the Government of India
Tel No.24642705

To

1. All Cadre Units of CSS [Ministries / Departments concerned
2. CSS Officers.
3. All sections of CS.I Division.

Rotational Transfer Policy (RTP) for the Central Secretariat Service (CSS)

The Rotational Transfer Policy (RTP) for CSS officers has been under implementation for quite some time. The Policy has been dynamic and amended from time to time to account for the new and changing requirements of the cadre units as well as DoPT as the cadre management authority. A need has now been felt to re-group the cadre units, for operational convenience, based on broad sectoral classification of Ministries/Departments and to bring further clarity in certain implementation modalities. Accordingly, the revised RTP applicable to Officers of the Central Secretariat Service shall be as follows:

1, Objectives: The Rotational Transfer Policy (RTP) aims to:

1. Ensure balanced sectoral exposure of CSS officers across functional domains of Government;
2. Develop a broad-based leadership pipeline within the CSS;
3. Promote administrative neutrality and institutional integrity;
4. Prevent long-term tenure of officers in any single Ministry/Department;-and
5. Facilitate transparent and technology-enabled cadre management through eHRMS.

2. Grouping of Ministries/ Departments:

(1) For the purpose of RTP, the Cadre Units (Ministries/ Departments) are categorised into four broad sectoral groups, namely —

Group ‘A’: Rural Development & Social Sector;

Group ‘B’: Economy, Finance & Industries;

Group ‘C’: Infrastructure, Resources & Technology;

Group ‘D’: Governance & Security.

(ii) The categorisation of the cadre units is listed in Annexure — I.

(iii) If an officer has completed his tenure in Group ‘A’ or ‘B’ or ‘C’ or ‘D’, he/she will be eligible for transfer to any of the other three groups. For the purpose of RTP, tenure in a Group shall mean cumulative continuous service in one or more Cadre Units falling within the same Group.

(iv) All transfers / Rotational Transfers would be implemented through the eHRMS only, for which all the Cadre Units have to ensure that the profiles of all officers are updated periodically, at-least once in 6 months (preferably before 1st January and 1st July of each year).

3. Tenure:

(1) Tenure for the purpose of Group rotation shall be counted cumulatively across grades within the same Group. The tenure prescribed for various grades of officers to be eligible for transfer to another Group is as under:

Illustration: – If an officer has completed tenure in Group ‘A’ (in a single grade or in two grades combined), he/she shall be eligible for transfer to any one of the remaining groups, i.e., Group ‘B’, or ‘C’ or ‘D’.

4, Transfer on promotion and exemption thereof:

(1) On promotion, an officer at any level shall be posted out of the Ministry/ Department if he/she has served in the same Cadre Unit in any capacity continuously for a period equivalent to one tenure or exceeding the prescribed tenure for the promotional post. In case the officer has not completed the prescribed tenure as applicable to the promotional post, he/she may be retained in that Cadre Unit, subject to availability of vacancies.

(ii) If the officer is due for superannuation within two years, he/she shall be retained in the same Cadre Unit against an existing vacancy of the promotional post. In the absence of a vacancy, any officer who has completed the tenure would be transferred failing which the officer would be transferred to any other Cadre Unit, as far as possible, within the same Group. If the officer is due for superannuation within 06 months, the post held by him/her will be temporarily upgraded on personal basis by keeping one post in another Cadre Unit vacant, so as not to exceed the overall cadre strength. On retirement, the post will revert to its original level.

(iii) Officers returning from Deputation shall be posted in any of the four Groups where there is requirement, irrespective of their earlier posting.

5. Officers exempted from transfer under RTP:

(i) Officers of all grades, except ASOs, within two years of superannuation shall be exempted from rotational transfers. In respect of ASOs, such exemption shall be applicable for those within five years of superannuation. :

(ii) Officers likely to be promoted within one year may be exempted from RTP to enable their transfer on promotion, if they have completed the prescribed tenure for the promotional post.

6. Exemption in respect of Officers posted in Certain Offices/Secretariats:

(i) Officers serving in the PMO, the Cabinet Secretariat, O/o the Solicitor General, O/o the Attorney General of India & O/o the Addl. Solicitor General shall be exempted from the regular RIP exercise.

(ii) Before issue of transfer orders under RTP, these offices will be provided a list of officers who have completed their normal tenure in the post / due for promotion and if the office concerned decides to retain any of those officers, keeping in view the willingness of the officers concerned, such officers shall be exempted from RTP. This exercise shall be repeated during every cycle of RTP/promotion.

7. Surrender of Officers:

(i) Unilateral surrender or relieving of officers on any ground is not allowed, as such surrender/ relieving of an officer poses several problems to the Cadre Controlling Authority. If an officer is not performing well, Ministries/ Departments concerned are expected to initiate appropriate disciplinary action either to penalize or to reform the officer. If a situation warrants that an officer has to be surrendered/ relieved, a request should be made to DoPT with detailed reasons and DoPT, after due consideration of the request on merits, shall take a decision on the same.

(ii) Despite these instructions, if any Ministry/ Department surrenders an officer unilaterally, then such surrender would be presumed to have been made along with the post and the sanctioned strength of the concerned Ministry/ Department would be reduced accordingly and no replacement/substitute would be provided to the cadre unit concerned for one year. After expiry of one year, the position would be reviewed for restoration of the post and posting of an officer.

8. Posting of Officers on return from Deputation/Long Leave/Long Term Training:

(i) An officer of any grade is required to report to CS Division (DoPT) on his/her return from deputation/long leave/long term training and shall be posted to any Cadre Unit based on the vacancy position and administrative exigencies. In such cases, this posting shall be treated as a fresh tenure. In case it is decided that an officer is to be posted back to the same Ministry/ Department he last served, then his/her tenure shall be limited to the balance period of the tenure prescribed for the grade, subject to the availability of a vacancy and further subject to the condition that at least one year of balance tenure is left.

(ii) Period of leave/ training exceeding six months shall be treated as long leave/ long term training for the purpose of posting under RTP. Further, it is the responsibility of the Officer concerned to ensure that the leave period is duly sanctioned/ regularised.

Provided that Officers returning from Maternity Leave or Child Care Leave (CCL) shall be posted in the same cadre unit as far as possible subject to availability of vacancies and administrative exigencies.

9. Preference for posting:

(i) Promotion is made against available vacancies. Preferences for posting on promotion, if allowed, would be considered, as indicated in the eHRMS portal, as far as possible within the available vacancies and in the order of seniority in the grade. This however would be subject to the functional requirements of the Ministry/Department.

(ii) For posting of officers to the PMO, the Cabinet Secretariat and the Central Vigilance Commission, as identified by these offices, no willingness will be sought and the officers will be posted to these offices even without their completion of tenure in the Cadre Unit/ Ministry/ Department.

(iii) CS.I Division (DoPT) shall share the list of CSS Officers eligible/ covered under RTP with UPSC in each grade and the request of the Commission, if any, for retention on case to case basis in exceptional cases would be considered. Retention so allowed shall be for a period not exceeding 50% of the normal tenure or till the promotion of the officer, whichever is earlier.

10. Outstation Posting:

The offices of the Central Ministries/ Departments participating in the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) are mostly located in the National Capital Region (NCR). However, there are a few posts of CSS located outside NCR in various regions of the country. The CSS being a transferable service, members of the CSS are liable to be posted to such posts located outside NCR also. Posts of CSS located outside NCR shall be filled up as under:

(i) Section Officers’ Grade and Assistant Section Officers’ Grade:

(a) The Cadre-Unit concerned shall fill up the post (s) from amongst the officers of that Ministry/ Department by circulating the post (s). In case of non-availability of officers within that Ministry/ Department, the cadre unit shall approach DoPT. DoPT shall circulate the post (s) by giving wider publicity and inviting applications from eligible CSS officers in the prescribed proforma, from any of the Ministries/ Departments, make selection and shall post the selected officer (s) to the outstation vacancy (ies).

(b) Once posted to an outstation office, an officer in ASO/ SO grade shall have a normal tenure of five years, which under circumstances of non-availability of suitable replacement shall be considered for extension on year to year basis, for maximum of a period equal to one tenure for that level, except on promotion.

(c) For availing promotions, the officer posted in an outstation post shall have to report to the CS division for assuming charge of higher post and further posting. There shall be no right for the officer to continue in the outstation post/organisation upon promotion.

(ii) Under Secretary and above level posts:

(a) For US and above level vacancies in offices, located outside NCR, CS.I Division shall invite applications from the eligible and willing officers. On the basis of applications received, an officer shall be posted with the approval of the competent authority keeping in view the service profile of the officer/ his family circumstances requiring posting to the particular station, etc. The tenure of the outstation posting shall have a normal tenure of five years, which under circumstances of non-availability of suitable replacement shall be considered for extension on year to year basis, i.e. for maximum of a period equal to one tenure for that level, except on promotion.

(b) For availing promotions, the officer shall have to report to the CS division for assuming charge of higher post and further posting. There shall be no right for the officer to continue in the outstation organisation upon promotion.

(iii) On completion of outstation posting tenure, officers of all grades shall report to DoPT for further posting.

(iv) In the absence of willing officers, DoPT may at its discretion post officers to such outstation postings as CSS carries all India service liability.

11. Transfer on request: :

CSS Officers on completion of at least half of the tenure specified for a grade, may on their own volition request for transfer by submitting a request on e- HRMS with due justification. Such officers may be considered for transfer to another Group in the next rotational transfer subject to availability  of vacancies and administrative/functional requirements. Such a request may be made by an officer only once in a grade.

12. Transfer and posting requests from PwBD officers:

Recognising the unique problems faced by officers under the category of Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBDs) and caregivers of Divyangjan in terms of DEPWD guidelines, requests for transfer and posting from them would be given due consideration to accommodate their request, as far as possible.

13. Cut-off date and tentative schedule of transfer:

(i) The crucial date for calculating the period of residency to decide the eligibility of the officer(s) for rotational transfer from the existing cadre unit shall be the date on which the process of rotational transfer is initiated, or any other date fixed with the approval of competent authority.

(ii) The transfers of officers under RTP shall generally be carried out twice within each calendar year in respect of each grade, except on promotion.

14. Non-compliance of orders issued by DoPT:

(i) In terms of Rule 19 of CSS Rules, 2009, the Department of Personnel and Training is the competent authority to transfer a CSS cadre officer of any Grade from one cadre unit to another cadre unit and it shall be the duty of the concerned cadre unit to relieve the officer concerned within the date indicated in the order or in any case within 45 days of the transfer order.

(ii) ‘If an officer transferred under RTP is not relieved within 45 days by the concerned Ministry or Department, the officer concerned shall be deemed to have been relieved.

(iii) Once the officer is deemed relieved from a Ministry or Department, eHRMS, SPARROW ID, etc shall automatically be transferred to the allotted Ministry or Department.

(iv) The deemed relieved officer shall not be entitled to draw any salary and allowances from the Ministry/ Department subsequent to the day he/she has been deemed relieved.

15. Interpretation:

Any interpretation, relaxation, or clarification in implementation of this RTP shall be decided by the Competent Authority in DoPT.

Annexure — I

View/Download the PDF