The West Bengal government has mandated that promotion proposals for senior state officials above a specified pay-scale must receive clearance from the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) before taking effect. The directive, issued by the state's Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department on 14 August, reinforces and expands on earlier orders from 2014 and 2020.

Who Falls Under the New Norm

According to the notification, state government officers in Pay Band-5 — drawing a basic pay between ₹37,400 and ₹60,000 with a Grade Pay of ₹8,900 — will now require mandatory CMO clearance for their promotion proposals. The pay matrix is governed by the West Bengal Services (Revision of Pay and Allowance) Rules (ROPA, 2019).

Under the revised procedure, the Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department will route all such promotion files directly to the CMO. No promotion in this category will be formalised without the office's explicit approval.

Not Entirely New, But Now Strictly Enforced

The directive is not without precedent. The same department had issued similar notifications on 7 July 2014 and 7 February 2020. The fresh circular serves as a reminder to all departments and instructs them to adhere strictly to those earlier guidelines — with an explicit instruction that no relaxation of the rules will be permitted.

This suggests that compliance with the earlier orders had been inconsistent across departments, prompting the state to reassert centralised control over senior-level appointments.

Departments Asked to Submit Officer Lists Within 7 Days

Beyond tightening the approval process, the department has directed all state government ministries to furnish detailed lists of officers in Pay Band-5 who are due for promotion — within seven days of the notification. Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, and Additional Chief Secretaries have been asked to provide additional details, including the date of each officer's last promotion and whether that promotion was granted with CMO concurrence.

The data collection exercise indicates that the state is conducting a systematic audit of past promotions at the senior level, potentially to identify cases where CMO approval was bypassed.

Centralisation of Administrative Power

The move is consistent with a broader pattern of the West Bengal administration consolidating key personnel decisions within the CMO. Critics argue that routing promotions through the Chief Minister's Office concentrates bureaucratic leverage at the top, potentially reducing the independence of departmental secretaries in managing their own cadres. Supporters, however, contend that centralised oversight ensures uniformity and prevents arbitrary or politically motivated promotions at the department level.

How departments respond to the seven-day data call — and whether the CMO exercises this authority uniformly — will be closely watched by the state's bureaucratic community in the weeks ahead.