The draft bill on Federal Civil Service which has proposed cutting down three civil service categories and barring inter-service transfer has drawn criticism from civil servants.

The bill which was recently registered at the Cabinet has removed three categories— economic planning and statistics, education, and miscellaneous and recommended adjusting them in administrative service while inducting two new services – health and parliament, which were governed by separate acts earlier.

Under the new arrangement, there will be nine services under the civil service – engineering, judicial, foreign, forestry, agriculture, administrative, auditing, parliament and health.

The central issue of discontent among civil servants from the administrative service is proposed adjustment of existing three services – education, economic planning and statistics, and miscellaneous to administrative service.

Since the government in the past used to adjust civil servants of other different services to the administrative service, they said adjustment of these three services to the administrative category will hit their career growth prospects.

Currently, there are 22,000 civil servants under the administrative service while there are around 5200 civil servants under education, economic planning and statistics, and miscellaneous services.

“With the entry of more than 5,200 people in the administrative service, our career prospects could be hit,” said a section officer who didn’t wished to be named.

Two years ago, 508 employees assigned at former Royal Palace were brought into administrative service and prior to that, hundreds of employees of postal service were also adjusted in the administrative service.

Similarly, 157 computer operators belonging to miscellaneous service were promoted to section officers and adjusted at the administrative service in the last two years.

The concerned civil servants have also objected to the provision of barring civil servants from switching services, as well as the provision that states only those employees who have served at the province or local levels for six years will be eligible for promotion in any of the civil services at the federal level.

Bhupal Baral, joint secretary at the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, said the three removed service categories could be adjusted within the administrative service as sub-groups to ensure that the plan does not affect the promotion of the employees.

Bimal Koirala, former chief secretary, however, cautioned that the  new provisions could demoralise the fresh entrants of civil service.

“The three services should be given separate recognitions so as not to affect the morale of the civil servants,” he said.

On Friday, dozens of civil servants expressed their discontent over the new provisions before Minister for Federal Affairs and General Administration Lalbabu Pandit.