After the Maharashtra cadre IAS Officer Trainee Puja Khedkar was disqualified from the service for producing fake disability certificates and misrepresenting facts to the UPSC, the UPSC examination process itself has come under a cloud. Social media is full of such cases – some could be genuine but others could be the likes of Puja Khedkar. Is there a case for a thorough investigation in all disability and caste certificates filed by UPSC candidates during past 10 years?
Former UPSC Chairman Deepak Gupta has had a ringside view of the IAS service, LBSNAA and UPSC examination process. He has also written a book ‘The Steeel Frame: A History Of The IAS’, discussing these problems and describing possible solutions. In a candid interview to Indian Masterminds, he spoke about all such things. Today we are presenting the first episode of this interview, focused mainly on the issues facing UPSC examinations.
Please click here to watch the full Video…
The UPSC coaching were in news for providing unsafe facilities after three students drowned to death on a classroom bring run in the basement of a building in UPSC coaching hub at New Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar. Why do we have such coaching hubs across India?
Mr Gupta has presented some radical solutions to these problems. The foremost being lowering the cutoff age for the examination to 28 years and limiting the attempts to three. This will lower the pressure on the UPSC, which has at present to make arrangements for almost 16 lakh students applying for the Civil Services Exam, even though only 8 to 9 lakh students actually appear.
Limiting the examination attempts would significantly reduce the number of students appearing for CSE, he says. He even advocates that each filled-out application form should be treated as an attempt. Reducing maximum number of attempts would also significantly reduce the number of coaching institutes, as students keep attending them year after year and their main focus is to somehow clear the UPSC exam instead of serving the nation and its development.
Mr Gupta feels the need to have separate exams for the IAS, the most premier service of the country. This will facilitate a longer personality test (interview), where even a psycho-analyst too need to be present. “You can’t judge a candidate properly in half an hour interview. We can’t take a longer interview because of the high number of interviewees,” he said.
Similarly, there should be separate exams for Audit & Accounts services at these are specialised jobs that require a different kind of talent. Mr Gupta also advocated taking affidavits from students about their certificates and strong penal action needed on those faking and forging their certificates.
Please listen to Mr Deepak Gupta’s journey of UPSC preparation and IAS career – in an interview done earlier – by clicking on the following link…
