Focus on Training Rather Than Selection

Intro:  A letter written by Prof SN Singh to Saurabh Jain, IAS, and copy of the same sent to PM Narendra Modi, underlines the need to focus on training rather than selection.

The training process of selected candidates has been deteriorating day by day. The motive of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration Campus, Mussorie is to take their young officers, as a part of their training, to villages and make them familiar with the village level situation. But unfortunately a few of them neither visit the concerned villages nor consult the village level census data and other official data. Later they get the data very easily from the District level offices during their training and submit it. After these reports have been sent to the academicians like or to retired IAS officer with academic credentials those who are working in this field, to compile and write the state report. There are three cases of three contiguous years trainees and here in place of their names referring to them as A, B and C. IAS trainee 'A' of 2005 batch submitted a study report of village Shorti located in Manoharthana Block of Jhalawar district. After one year IAS trainee 'B' of 2006 batch submitted his report as part of village study of the village-Ratlai, Block Bakani of Jhalawar district. In his report he has just changed the name of the village, its population figure and narrated everything in the same manner word for word, as his senior trainee had submitted in 2005. Trainee 'C' of 2007 copied the whole report and followed the pattern of B’s report and merely changed the name of the village, the village population figure, names of the poorest of the poor and submitted the report as a part of fulfilling the training requirement.
One point that is very critical in all the reports is which are written as follows by all 3 trainees:”There are 4 graduates, 20 senior secondary and 25 matric pass unemployed also in this village.” The three reports referred above are from the Jhalawar district, Constituency of Chief Minister of Rajasthan Vashundhra Raje. If an IAS trainee in the constituency of the CM did not visit the village and collect correct relevant data, then anybody can understand the grass root situation and wonder what other trainees were doing in far off places and politically less relevant places! How will they serve the rural poor with honesty and dedication as officers and contribute towards creating a just society?
I have been associated with the recruitment and training process of officers and academicians for a long time. Even in interviews for civil servants in UPSC and PSC of different states I observed that after 25-30 minutes of a rigorous question-answer session the selection committee discussed the candidates performance and if some short comings were found in any candidates it was generally said 'He can overcome this during training.’ But how will it be possible if training is not proper or trainees are not taking interest in it?
Improvement during training needs no extra budget, no formation of new rules, only your word to counselors and direction to all concerned.
-Prof SN Singh (The writer is Head of Dept of Political Science in Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University, Ajmer)