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Bengal

Sweta Agarwal from Bengal ranks 19th in Civil Services exam

It may be recalled that 22-year-old Tina Dabi from Delhi has ranked 1st in this year’s Civil Services Examination.

Sweta had cleared the Civil Service examination twice in the past in the last two years and is currently receiving training at the Police Academy in Hyderabad.

Her father Santosh Agarwal runs a business dealing with iron. The family is being looked after by his wife Prema.

There was a time when due to economic hardship the family faced lots of trouble even in spending Rs 165 for Sweta’s studies. But crossing all hurdles she stood by her daughter who completed her graduation from St Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Sweta who hails from Bhadreshwar had spent her childhood in Chandannagore. She was admitted to St Joseph’s Convent in Hooghly and was later shifted to Auxilliam Convent, Bandel.

Sweta was loved by her teachers for her seriousness in studies. She had to face relatives who did not want her to go for higher studies and pursue career as they thought that she should get married at an early age.

She appeared for Civil Services examination in 2015- 16 as she wanted to improve her rank.
Her teachers had always stood by her and gave her necessary coaching and suggestions.

Though the First Indian Civil servant was Satyendra Nath Tagore, elder brother of Rabindranath, till early 1970s there were many civic servants from West Bengal. 

After CPI(M) came to power, Jyoti Basu said that the state government would be run not by IAS but by civil servants from state cadre.

The result has been disastrous. Now, one finds one IAS officer looking after two or even three departments due to acute shortage of IAS officers.

From the 1980s when the pattern of IAS examination changed and three tier system- preliminary- inter and final was introduced, many IAS coaching centres came up in Delhi, Patna and Bhubaneshwar.

But no centre with proper facility came up in West Bengal. Also, withdrawal of English from Primary level proved to be another disaster and today the biggest charge against the students from West Bengal is that they cannot speak or write English.

With this backdrop, Sweta should be given kudos for cracking the most prestigious examination in the country thrice.

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