NEW DELHI: As a new year gift, nearly 4,000 government officials working at different levels of hierarchy have been promoted, Union minister Jitendra Singh said on Tuesday."Most of these promotions had been pending for over 10 to 15 years, either because of litigation or indefinite delay for other reasons. A decision was taken to clear the backlog as far as possible and, in certain cases, subject to the outcome of the litigation," the Minister of State for Personnel said.Expressing satisfaction, he said, this issue was very close to his heart."It is a new year gift to these employees. Ever since I came to the Department of Personnel and Training ( DoPT ) in 2014, I always felt deeply pained to see dozens of government officials retiring every month without getting promotion for years together," Singh told PTI.He appreciated the cooperation received from all the officers of DoPT in carrying forward the resolve to correct this anomaly.Singh also appreciated the manner in which the entire staff in the DoPT had worked day and night to ensure that all these promotion orders could be processed and issued before the last day of the year i.e. December 31, 2018.Of the total 3,991 promoted officials, 1,756 belong to the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) and 2,235 to Central Secretariat Stenographer Service (CSSS), according to an official statement.Singh said the DoPT was working hard to clear the remaining pendency of promotions as well.At least 584 more promotions in the Section Officer (SO) grade are already in process and the orders will be issued in coming days, the minister said.The promoted officers belong to different categories, including deputy secretaries, under secretaries, section officers, private secretaries, private personal secretaries, senior private personal secretaries and principal assistants, the statement said.