At a time when chief minister Mamata Banerjee is encouraging students from the state to appear for the civil service examination, four students from Bengal have cracked the examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in 2016.
The chief minister has even instructed the district magistrates and superintendents of police to take the initiative to provide coaching to bright boys and girls who are interested in cracking in the civil services
The Administrative Training Institute (ATI) in Salt Lake, the state government is giving coaching to civil service aspirants.
Bengal's Shantanu Bala has ranked 158th. He took coaching from ATI. Bala left his job as an IT executive in Bengaluru last year to prepare for the Civil Services examination. He stayed at his sister's house in Naktala and slogged for the examination.
Supriya Das who has ranked 236th had studied in the USA at the undergraduate level with political and international relations as her subjects. Inspired by her parents, she decided to sit for the examination.
Amartya Banerjee, a former student of Visva Bharati University and Delhi University has ranked 524. He said there is no short cut to success.
Sekhar Chowdhury, a WBCS officer had appeared for the UPSC examination and cracked it with 624th rank. He took leave from office to prepare for the examination. A lover of Kishore Kumar's songs, Chowdhury really put himself to the grind.
Bengal had produced a large number of IAS and IPS officers till the 1980s. After the Left Front government came to power, it did not encourage students to appear for the UPSC examinations. Unlike Delhi, there were few coaching centres and the university syllabus also did not help the students to crack the examination.