Srinagar, Mar 3: In an appeal to the young students of Cluster University, Kashmir at Amar Singh College, former Advisor to the Governor Khurshid Ahmed Ganai, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Mohammad Aijaz and Deputy Commissioner Kulgam Bilal Mohiuddin Bhat enjoined upon the students of the constituent colleges of the university to opt for civil services as a career to render public services to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
Ganai pointed to the problem of declining interest of Kashmir youth in the civil services and thought that this serious issue needs to be addressed at the earliest. Ganai informed that the number of candidates from Kashmir division in the 2021 JK Combined Services examination was on the lower side as compared to Jammu division which resulted in only 20 % candidates from Kashmir in the list of selected candidates for the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS), JKPS and JK Accts Service.
Ganai dwelt at length at his own experiences of near four decade long stay in the administration and said that he was fortunate to get so many opportunities at rendering important public service and that he never regretted having chosen civil service as his career despite having got a job in a famous multinational immediately after passing out as an engineer from BITS, Pilani in 1979. He said that Jammu and Kashmir is beset with so many challenges of governance and it is only the bright young officers belonging to Jammu and Kashmir itself who will be best suited to tackle and solve those problems. He said that the young students cannot shy away from entering civil services in J&K because then the local public will be ill served.
Mohammad Aijaz, DC Srinagar related his own experiences as a student, as a candidate for civil services examination and as a young IAS officer. He said that he had already got many opportunities at solving important problems of the public and that he also never regretted entering the civil services despite having passed out from IIT Delhi as a Mechanical engineer and having many other career options.
Bilal Mohiuddin Bhat, DC Kulgam informed that he was an Alumnus of Amar Singh College and although he passed the Indian Forest Service examination and served as a Forest officer for a few years in Uttar Pradesh, his heart was in the civil services and therefore he set upon passing the civil services examination which he finally did. He had many suggestions for the aspiring youth.
All three gave many tips to the students for preparation for the civil services examinations, both preliminary and main, for choice of optionals for the main examination and about choice of books and approach for General Studies in the main examination. The addresses were followed up by a lively question answer session and final address by the Vice Chancellor of the Cluster University Kashmir, Professor Qayuum Hussain. The VC emphasised on creating a culture for civil services in Kashmir and assured to take concrete steps in the direction of preparing the desirous students of the constituent colleges for the civil services examinations conducted by the JKPSC and the UPSC. The VC and the three key speakers for the session also informed about other competitive examinations conducted at the central level by Staff Selection Commission and Banks. They said that even the CSE conducted annually by the UPSC was not only for IAS, IPS and IFS, but the same examination selects candidates for about 23 more central services including Group A and Group B Services.
Principal Amar Singh College Prof Bashir Ahmed Rather presented the welcome address and Dr. Kounsar Muzamil of Urdu Department anchored the programme. Vote of thanks was presented by Dr. Shazia Mushtaq of the Cluster University. In addition to the students of the cluster university colleges, the staff of Amar Singh College also attended the counselling session.