Mentoring for Civil services Examinations by serving Civil servants.

CIVIL SERVICES MENTORS (CSM)

1.               What is CSM (Civil Services Mentors)?

CSM is an informal initiative by some of the serving Civil servants to motivate and mentor those who aspire to become civil servants. Currently there are 50 of them, and they are from different civil services like IRS, IFoS, IFS, IPS and IAS. This mentoring is free of cost, and a pro-bono initiative.

2.               How is the mentoring done?

The mentoring is done virtually, through social networking application (Telegram).  There is collective mentoring where a group of mentors interact with a group of aspirants, few days in a week, normally from 9.30 to 10.30pm. Then there is personal mentoring, where there is one to one personal mentoring done at mutually convenient timings, and mode between the mentor and the aspirant, usually thru emails/texts/voice call etc. Personal meetings will be a rarity.

3.               How can the aspirants join this mentorship programme?

Aspirants can join this mentorship programme by texting relevant details* about them in the ‘Telegram Application’, to any of the chief mentors as given below. There are 5 classes as of now, Prelims 2015, Prelims 2014 (freshers), Prelims 2014 (repeaters), Prelims 2014 (repeaters), and Mains 2014. We plan to start a class for interview once the mains results are out.

The class	Chief mentor	Contacts
Prelims 2015	Balamurgan, IRS, 1997	09480609409
Prelims 2014 (Fresh)	Sachin Shinde, IAS, 2008	09436633848
Prelims 2014  (Repeat) Section: 1	Manivannan, P., IAS, 1998	09663369333
Prelims 2014 (repeat ) Section: 2	Dr. P C Jaffer, IAS, 2003	09448355577
Mains 2014	Alex Paul Menon, IAS, 2006	09424207722

*Relevant details to be sent by the aspirants (only as a text in telegram messenger application):

a.   Full name, along with Facebook profile name, if any.

b.   Age, sex, and the city/town residing in the last 6 months.

c.   Percentage marks in 12th, and Graduation.

d.   Why you want to join civil services, and why you want mentoring? (100 words only.)

e.   Which group you want to opt? (One aspirant can opt for only one group at a time.)

In case the aspirant is selected for mentoring, she/he will be intimated by return message in next 72 hours. If there is no intimation, then it’s assumed that the said aspirant is not considered for mentoring, and the details will be deleted. She/he can re-apply afresh after 6 months. The decision of the chief mentor is final; no further questions will be entertained. During selection, we give more importance to discipline and character, than intelligence.

4. What about mentoring for interview?

Mentoring for interview will be done only for those who get the interview call. Once they get the interview call, they may send text message in telegram to: Mr. Gyanendra Tripathi, IAS, 1998 (09435067666) or to Manivannan, P., IAS, 1998 (09663369333). For this group, there will be virtual mock interviews conducted my panels having senior civil servants as members.

5. Any other points?

The idea behind this mentoring is that, each aspirant has the potential to clear the CSE, provided she/he realizes the potential. So, the mentors provide clarity, and thus motivate the aspirants to realize their full potential. There will be absolutely no spoon feeding or coaching in this programme.

Though, we aim to mentor the aspirants in such a way that there is 100% success, let no aspirant think that joining this programme will ensure success. 

The list of mentors is attached with this post!

Corruption forms...

Raghunandan Tr: Little interesting thing to share: Yashavantha Tumakuru's father Sannamuddhaiya, works for the Revenue department in Tumkur. He is currently the Hon president of the state employees association. I learnt much from him and i respect him a lot. Ten years back, he was the president of the Tumkur employee association, and i was Assistant commissioner there.

Once we both had a heated argument on corruption when i was to take extremely severe action on village accountant on a corruption case, which was not proved. During the conversation we ended up classifying corruption into three categories.

One: the 'Demand corruption'; the most visible form of corruption, and called as retail corruption, where the official 'demands' a favor/money, for doing his ‘duty’ Eg. Asking for bribe for giving ration card.

Second: ‘Risk corruption’; where the official and the citizen ‘agree’ to exchange favors, for giving ‘illegal benefit’ to the citizen. Eg: allowing set-back violations.

Third: ‘Safe corruption’; where the official does extra legal work for the citizen, and takes money in exchange. E.g. Getting driving license out of the way, in single day!

We tried to tackle it starting from the first to third category. But, then first itself proved so difficult, and still I am struggling to work with systems that would free us from the ‘demand corruption’.

I can say with some surety that first category can be eliminated. I am not sure about second and third category, though I would like to work hard to remove those too.

We have a very long way to go…

Will Aam Aadmi Party do this? (Part 16)

Last week we saw why it is not so easy to dismiss any government official from service, and how the official appears to have nine lives! Now, the next logical question will be, why can’t we amend the rules so that dismissal or punishment can be made easier, like it’s done in most of the private sector? And can citizens do anything in this regard?

The above questions of Raju assumes significance, as citizens' movements are getting stronger day by day, and political parties are promising strict action against corrupt government officials.

Let’s see what Vani aunt has to say about this!

“Raju, let’s first understand why these nine lives for officials. In the private sector, the decision to dismiss a staff may be taken at two levels, a proposal and an acceptor. But, in government, it takes almost 5-6 levels to take the final call. And at each level there is a delay due to inefficiency in the system. This can be reduced to just 2 levels by governments.

But, the government seem to hesitate, as it will obviously upset employee associations. The associations may go on strike, disrupting public work. Hence the popularly elected governments don’t want to take a chance! Now, we have to wait and see, if parties like AAP catch the bull by the horn and amend the rules!

Citizens too, have a role to play by complaining about those officials who are corrupt or inefficient, rather than putting up with them or turning a blind eye, for whatsoever reasons. If every lapse of officials are taken seriously and brought to the public forum, it will act as a deterrent. It’s much easier and effective to do that with social media all around! However will we start doing it?”

“Aunty, why can’t the government recruit good people, to start with?”

“Good question! For just that purpose, we have the Public Service Commissions, who are mandated with recruiting the best for government service. UPSC for union government and State PSCs for state government. But, then it’s unfortunate that most of the state PSCs have lost their credibility. It’s high time that the governments ensures complete independence and professionalism in these agencies. Sadly, the government want to retain control over these agencies. Here too, again, I am waiting for new age governments like AAP to amend rules to make public service commissions 100% independent.”

“Hmm. I understand. Aunty, what percentage of the government officials,do you think, are bad?”

“Ah, that’s a difficult question to answer. But, going by the normal curve, and giving some bias for inherent problems in the selection process and working environment, one can say that 30% of them are quite bad, 50% of them are fence sitters who will be good or bad depending on the environment, and another 20% who are really good irrespective of the environment.”

“What is this environment thing you are referring to, Aunty?”

“Oh, that is the system in which they work Raju. It includes the incentive-disincentive system. It is very critical that, we should have a fair and strong incentive and disincentive system for employees in any organisation.

But, it’s extremely unfortunate that in the government, where one would expect top class incentive-disincentive system, this system is practically non-functional! Incentives are almost non-existent, and disincentives are hard to impose, as we saw just now!

There are no monetary incentives! Other incentives like promotions are given periodically to all, irrespective of their performance. So, the motivational levels are quite low in the government. It is a mystery as to why the government is not able to copy best practices in this aspect from the market! I guess no government wants to touch issues concerned with employee associations! Ah, I don’t want to pull the AAP again into this, although I am tempted to!

Environment also includes the culture that is maintained by the top boss. If the top is clean, than people at the bottom think twice before getting involved in brazen acts. At the same time, a clean person at the top does not automatically ensure stoppage of corruption, as the top boss in government has less control over his subordinates, compared to his counterpart in the private sector!”

“Can’t we discuss with employee associations Aunty? They too must have good people in it?! ”

You are right Raju! No organization or association is entirely good or bad! It is as good or bad as its members are! Now, the members also have their set of grievances. The working conditions are quite bad in government! Now, do you see this office?! Would any private company work in such a bad office?! In most offices, the furniture are old, and even the toilets are non-existent! There is a severe shortages of officials in departments! No recruitment has happened since decades!

So, there is a need for dialogue. The government needs to listen to the associations and improve the working conditions of the employees. while the government spends a large proportion of the available funds towards the public capital works, it spends inadequately on its own employees! While the capital expenditure on the public is increasing every year, the revenue expenditure moves at snail’s pace, or a fixed raise of 5%, which hardly suffices to take care of inflation! So, if we do not take care of the employees, then how can we expect them to work and take care of the public?”

Before Raju could ask his next question, the Shanbhag came out of his room. He was surprised to see both of them still sitting there. “Manju, why are they still sitting here? What happened?”

Before his man-Friday Manju could say anything, Aunty intervened. “Shanbhag sir, I am Mrs. Murthy. You may remember Mr. Murthy, who recently retired as Additional Regional Commissioner. He said he knows you.”

“What??! ARC Murthy sir?!! Madam, why didn't you tell me this earlier?!! Oh please sit down! Goodness!” The Shanbhag's face glowed, and he was clearly overwhelmed!

“Madam, please come inside and sit! Please!!! Manju, will you please get some thing to drink and some samosa? Oh Madam, Murthy sir has been so good! Such a nice officer! You know, when I was implicated in a false case, it was Murthy sir, who closed the file, when the earlier officials demanded money from me to close it! He cleared so many pending cases for others too! He is a gem of a person. Now, please tell me what can I do for you?”

Raju was so shocked even to respond!
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(To be continued on a relaxed Sunday!)