Remote India aspirants thrive in IAS through democratisation: Jitendra Singh

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Friday said that the “democratisation” of civil services due to technology-driven accessibility to preparatory material has enabled aspirants from remotest parts of India to make it to the IAS and other all-India services.

Technology has been the biggest leveller, with mobile phone and internet penetrating the countryside and everybody gaining access to knowledge, he said addressing the Indian Administrative Service probationers at the 98th foundation course of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), bringing together 560 officer trainees from 16 civil services of India and three civil services of Bhutan, being conducted here.

“The demography of the entire civil services has changed – you have now toppers from Punjab, Haryana,” said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel. He said, in recent years there has been a sort of “democratisation” of civil services and other avenues due to technology-driven accessibility to preparatory material which has, of late, enabled even the aspirants from remotest parts of India to make it to the IAS and other all-India services, according to a Personnel Ministry statement.

In the last 9-10 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “cautiously introduced” fundamental changes in governance, Singh said. Symbolically, “PM Modi has moved India out of Delhi” and many events are now being organised across the country, he said.
“PM Modi has stressed that the age of working in silos is over and today it is the ‘whole of government’ approach,” the minister said. Singh said, civil services officers have to turn them into instruments of public service delivery of the government’s citizen-centric schemes.