Civil Service Examination - Relaxation of number of attempts
A DOPT release states, "The Central Government has approved "two additional attempts to all categories of candidates w.e.f. Civil Services Examination 2014, with consequential age relaxation of maximum age for all categories of candidates, if required."
At present a candidate for the Civil Services (IAS, IFS, IPS, IRS etc.) Examination is permitted four attempts to clear the examinations. There is no restriction in the number of attempts for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes candidates and seven attempts are allowed for candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes.
The upper age limit is 30 years for general candidates and 35 for SC/ST candidates and 33 for OBC candidates.
Now this age restriction may be enhanced by another two years. So we may have a civil servant joining the service at the age of 32/37 and after two years of training he will actually start working at the age of 34/39.
No young man or woman is going to remain unemployed till he/she is 32 to 37 years before joining the service. So, by the time he joins the service he already has experience working in other places and is exposed to the corruption and other evils of society. The idea was to recruit young Indians with fire in their eyes and patriotism in their blood to form the formidable Indian Civil Service. Are we not ruining the service by recruiting middle aged thoroughly spoiled men and women into the service? By this age they are already married, have experience of a couple of jobs and most of them are corrupt. Immediately on completing the mandatory two-year probation, they manage to procure sensitive postings and start making money from Day One. You can see several former Transport officers, Commercial Tax officers and such others with rich experience of collecting money joining the Civil Services. We also have highly qualified people like Post Graduates in Management, Engineering, Medicine, Law and chartered accountants joining the services - for what? Status? Money?. The qualification for the examination is just graduation! (This does not mean that all experienced and highly qualified candidates are corrupt - there are several honest ones among them too.) When the best candidates between the ages of 21 and 23 are already recruited by other organisations, by the time the Government recruits, the best candidates are gone and what we get for the State are certainly not the best.
Instead of increasing the number of attempts and the age limit, we should try to recruit young boys and girls, preferably immediately after Plus 2 (12th class) and make them into committed Nation Builders with a seven year intensive training during which patriotism and discipline should be instilled into them and we create a real steel frame which will administer the country efficiently, effectively and honestly.