Administrative Officer (AO)

Maintaining a proper work life balance depends on an individual. I have seen civil servants having a well balanced work-life while I have also seen people holding non-significant posts not being able to balance between work and family. Coming to the first part of the question, you may deduce the answer from the following. The working hours of AIC is 10:00 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. from Monday to Thursday and 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday while all Saturdays are off. Sitting beyond office hours is required only during the period of closing of accounts, peak season for publicity and marketing, exigencies like loss assessment, claims processing,etc. However, an A.O. has to undertake plenty of tour. Last year I took 23 flights, 6 train journeys, 9 bus journeys and approx 2300 km taxi journeys. There are also occasions when an A.O. posted in one Regional Office is sent on deputation for 2–3 weeks to other Regional Office which requires additional manpower due to exigency. Preparing for UPSC CSE is very challenging as frequent tours interrupt the flow of the study plan and also it is not possible to manage more than 2–3 hours of study on weekdays. Although I have colleagues in AIC who cleared NABARD/RBI or other UPSC exams, CSE is at a whole different level. The in hand salary at the time of joining will be between Rs. 41,000–42,000. The salary revision was to have taken place from August 2017 but so far no word has been heard about it.