NEW DELHI: The entire Upper House (Rajya Sabha) responded with pleasant surprise and amusement when Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) and MoS PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh made a startling revelation on the floor of the House that almost all the engineers and doctors appearing for IAS / Civil Services Exam do not prefer to appear in their formal subject of graduation, but instead opt for Arts subjects to write the exam.
In the presence of Prime Minister and senior members of the House, Singh dismissed the contention that there is any correlation between the formal academic qualification of an IAS aspirant and his performance in the Civil Services Exam because, invariably, the two are different. He referred to the vociferous demand in 1970’s and 1980’s to include MBBS / Medical Sciences as one of the optional subjects in Civil Services Exam, but when eventually, in 1994, Medical Sciences was included in the list of optional subjects, it was noticed in the following years that most of the medicos, very much like IITians, preferred to choose subjects like Public Administration, Geography or Sociology as optional subject to write the Civil Services Exam.
Responding to a question by Dr Subramanian Swamy as to why “AYUSH” had not yet been included as an optional subject for Civil Services Exam, Singh disclosed that even in the latest IAS / Civil Services Exam result of 2016, 19 out of 20 toppers had done their formal graduation in engineering, medicine or some other science stream subject, even though they mostly opted to write their Civil Services Exam in Arts subjects.
In response to concern expressed by several members about the deficit or delay in filling up IAS vacancies, Singh said, one important factor responsible for this is the extended age limit for eligibility to appear in IAS Exam. The entire House was amused when he disclosed that in the British ICS (Indian Civil Services) which inspired the IAS, the age limit to appear in exam was 18 to 23 years, whereas currently for the IAS Exam, the last age limit goes up to 47 years if we take into consideration the excess number of attempts allowed for different categories to appear in the Civil Services Exam. The delay by State Governments to conduct cadre review for induction of provincial civil servants into IAS is also responsible for the deficit, he added.