Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh on Tuesday interacted with and felicitated the Top 20 All India Toppers of IAS/ Civil Services Exam 2021 at the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) headquarters at North Block in Delhi, here.
The results for IAS/Civil Services Exams were declared on May 30.
In his welcome address to the top rankers, he called the 2021 batch of Civil Servants the "Architects of Century India".
"When India is celebrating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav coinciding with the 75th Year of India's Independence, this Century Batch with 25 to 30 years of active service ahead will charter a new course when independent India turns 100," he said.
"Onus will be on them to become an active partner in realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of New India that would lead the rest of the world," he added.
During the introduction of the 20 toppers, Singh also noted that there were 10 engineers and two medicos among them and hoped that they will add value to the work assigned to them in carrying out various specialized schemes and programmes introduced by the PM Modi led Government in the last 8 years.
The Minister also hoped that these technocrats will be able to do justice to the highly specialised flagship programmes of the government in sectors like Health, Agriculture, Water, Environment, Industries, Education, Skills and Mobility to name a few.
The Minister also pointed out that apart from the first three toppers in Civil Services Exam- 2021, there are 8 female candidates out of 20 toppers, which is up to 40 per cent and asserted that we are closely arriving at gender parity.
He, further, took a note of the demographic change that has happened over the last few years and said, "they represent a pan-India coverage as these candidates hail from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana."
He said, "this gender and demographic change augurs well for a diverse country like India", while also underlining that even candidates having done schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Navodaya School and Government schools are cracking the exam, while earlier it was mostly confined to the "elite schools".
He also mentioned, "He had introduced this tradition of personally inviting the All India Toppers to North Block and felicitating them after he joined the government in 2014."
Responding to the student's concerns regarding the difficulties due to language, Singh affirmed, "Indian Government is committed to promoting Indian languages and efforts are on to translate the engineering and medical books in Indian Languages through the professionals." He also assured that the National Education Policy (NEP-2020) will further address some of the challenges.
He later informed, "by the year-end, a computer-based online Common Eligibility Test (CET) will be conducted for the recruitment to Non-Gazetted posts" and added that "the tests will be initially conducted in 12 languages and will gradually include all the languages mentioned in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution."
Jitendra Singh also recalled some of the path-breaking reforms brought in for the young probationers and IAS officers during the last seven years. These, he said, included the introduction of a 3-month stint of mentorship at the Central government before giving over to the respective State or Union Territory to join the allocated cadre.
He also wished the top rankers a great career ahead, full of diverse opportunities and challenges, hoping that they would be able to give their best to the country.
The programme was also attended by all the senior officers of the department.
( With inputs from ANI )
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