Types of Secretaries

2. Types of Secretaries

A 'secretary' exists in many different kinds of organisations, each with a different scope, method of appointment, and level of legal regulation. The Maharashtra Std XI syllabus identifies five broad types:

1. Personal / Private Secretary. Employed by an individual — a businessperson, a public figure, a minister, or a senior executive — to manage that person's personal correspondence, appointments, travel arrangements, and confidential papers. A private secretary is purely a matter of private employment: there is no statute governing the post, no mandatory qualification, and the scope of work is whatever the employer decides. Loyalty, discretion, and organisational skill matter far more here than any formal certification.
2. Secretary of a Club, Association, or Non-profit Society. Social, cultural, sports, or charitable bodies (a gymkhana, a residents' welfare association, a students' union) elect or appoint a secretary from among their own members to run the body's day-to-day affairs — maintaining the membership register and minute-book, handling correspondence, organising the association's meetings and events, and implementing decisions taken by its managing committee. This post is usually honorary (unpaid) and governed only by the association's own constitution/bye-laws, not by any Act of Parliament.
3. Secretary of a Co-operative Society. A co-operative society (a credit society, a housing society, a consumer or producer co-operative) appoints a secretary to maintain its statutory records, implement the decisions of its managing committee, correspond with the Registrar of Co-operative Societies, and ensure the society's day-to-day working stays within the co-operative societies Act and rules applicable in the State (in Maharashtra, the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960) and the society's own bye-laws. Unlike a personal secretary, this post carries real statutory compliance responsibility, though it is regulated by co-operative law rather than company law.
4. Government Secretary. In government administration, a 'Secretary' is a senior civil servant (commonly a senior IAS officer) who heads a government department or ministry — for example, the Secretary of a department in the Government of Maharashtra, or a Secretary to the Government of India. This is the most senior administrative (not political) officer of that department, responsible for translating the government's policy decisions into departmental action, and for the department's overall administration. Appointment is through the civil services system, not by election or private employment. …