MeitY secretary’s advice to IAS aspirants: Go for Plan B after 2-3 attempts

S Krishnan, MeitY Secretary

S Krishnan, secretary, ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY), has an advice for civil services aspirants: it is not worth it if the first two or three attempts don’t work out and always have a plan B.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of aspirants sit the Union Public Service Commission examination (UPSC) conducted for entry into administrative, police, foreign and several other services. Considered one of the toughest examinations, lakhs of people vie for a handful of positions in the government.

“The first thing I advise any youngster who comes to me saying I want to appear for the civil services is it’s a wonderful career option. I have had great fun. You can do a variety of things. You learn a lot. You meet a lot of people... You can at times mess up at somebody else’s cost. In every sense of the word, it is a good ride,” the senior Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer said during the Moneycontrol and CNBC-TV18 AI Alliance NCR Chapter in Gurugram.

“The second piece of advice I give any aspiring civil servant is that please make sure that you have something as your plan B. Don’t spend all the time taking all the attempts till the age you can take. I don’t think that’s worth it.

“If you make it in the first two or three attempts that’s good but after that, pursue something else that would interest you and get away from this. Be sure that you have another space to go,” he said on May 17.

In the present generation, people are doing gigs —jumping from one thing to another and another as a matter of choice. I think it reflects development, in a sense, too,” he said.

In April, UPSC declared the results for the Civil Services Exam 2023. A total of 1,016 candidates cleared the exam and recommended for different central government services, the UPSC said. While 13 lakh candidates applied for the preliminary screening, 14,624 qualified for the main exam.

“Nowadays, compared to when I joined the civil services, you are also paid fairly well. It’s a fairly good career. I failed to convince my son to do it. He wanted to do something else. What the world today offers is that at a particular level of education, there are multiple choices that a person can make. And many of those choices are equally good,” Krishnan said.

Recently, economist Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council kicked up a controversy when he said during a podcast that the "UPSC is a waste of time".

“Just like Bengal aspired to pseudo intellectuals and union leaders, Bihar aspired to small-time local goon politicians. In an environment where those are the role models, you can either become a local goon, if you don't want to become a local goon, your way out is to basically become a civil servant,” Sanyal said of what he described as the “poverty of aspiration”.

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