Online Earning with a Government Job: Rules and Reality

A colleague received a formal notice from HR: "clarification needed regarding your undisclosed business activity." He'd been running a small online clothing store registered under his own name.

The office went unusually quiet that day. Everyone knew people had side income going on. Nobody had really expected an actual official notice to show up over it.

That same week, my own Hindi personal finance blog got scrubbed of every identifying detail and moved under a pseudonym. Name changed, nothing left that traced back to me personally.

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What the rule actually says

For central government employees, Rule 15 of the Conduct Rules states that written permission from your department is required before starting any private trade or business, or taking up any form of private employment.

That rule dates back to 1964, and it's still fully in effect. State government employees are typically bound by similar service rules, with some variation between states.

Honestly, the first time I actually read the rule, it felt like it banned basically everything extra. That's not quite accurate. Occasional literary or artistic work, writing, small creative projects, is generally understood to be allowed without formal permission. Regular, monetized activity that starts looking like an actual business is where permission genuinely becomes necessary.

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What's actually happening among colleagues

Around the office, honestly, plenty of people have something going on the side. Someone sells stock photos. Someone else tutors on weekends. Another runs a small blog. How many of them have actually gone through the formal permission process is an entirely separate question.

A senior colleague once put it this way: "as long as nobody complains, nobody looks." That wasn't advice, just an honest observation he shared. The underlying risk in that statement is fairly obvious.

That HR notice, though, is a reminder that the risk is real, no matter how common the practice appears to be day to day.

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What I ended up deciding

Looked into the formal permission process first. It involved explaining exactly what the blog was, how much it earned, and how the whole thing operated, a fairly involved paperwork trail.

Went with a pseudonym instead. No full name, no office details, nothing visually identifying anywhere on the blog. Chose that route knowing full well it isn't a zero-risk option.

And, to be fair, it's not a perfect solution either. If someone who personally knows me recognized the writing style, that could still become a problem. So far, across roughly two years, nothing like that has happened.

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What feels comparatively safer

Purely content-based work, writing a blog or making educational videos, tends to carry less risk than something that looks like an actual registered business with a physical product, GST registration, or employees attached to it.

Something like selling digital templates falls into that same lower-risk category too, it's an individual creative output, not a full operational business setup.

What feels riskier is anything resembling actual "employment," fixed regular hours working for someone else, even if it's technically freelance work rather than a formal job.

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What a different colleague chose to do

A different colleague went through formal permission for his small YouTube channel, where he posts cooking content. Took roughly three months and several forms to get approved. But now he operates with zero underlying stress about it, nothing hanging over his head.

He suggested I do the same. My blog leans more toward personal opinion pieces though, and explaining that clearly in a formal application feels more complicated than his straightforward cooking content. Sticking with the pseudonym route for now.

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A general HR circular came through yesterday, asking all employees to declare any side income. Reading through it carefully right now, trying to figure out the right move. Might finally be the moment to go the formal route. Might not be. Genuinely haven't decided yet.