If the profile of recruits being trained at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA),Mussoorie,is anything to go by,the purpose of Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT),introduced two years ago to make the civil services examination (CSE) a level playing field,appears to have been defeated. Students with science background have gained an upper hand and the number of those with a rural background has dropped considerably. Only 27 per cent of the 269 members of the 2012 batch at LBSNAA have a rural background. Their four-month foundation course began on September 3. Latest data on the LBSNAA website reveal only 31 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women recruited have a rural background. In 2009 and 2010 and 2011,the year CSAT was introduced,63-67 per cent of men recruited by LBSNAA were from a rural background. Of the 71 women candidates selected in 2012,only 11 (15 per cent) are from rural background. In 2011,52 of 58 (90 per cent) woman recruits had the background. Of the 999 candidates selected after CSE-2012,the top 269 were enrolled for initial training at LBSNAA last fortnight. The initial training is for Indian Administrative Service,Indian Foreign Service and Indian Police Service. The remaining are being trained in Nagpur,Hyderabad and Bhopal. The profile of the second post-CSAT batch shows while students from science background,including engineers,still enjoy an upper hand,the number of those from arts background has drooped. There is an increase in the number of students from management and commerce backgrounds,data show. The number of students with a commerce background at LBSNAA increased from 3 to 9 in the past three years to 18 in 2012. Data show CSAT has also not created a level playing field for students geographically. Five states have gone without representation in the first two batches. In 2009 and 2010,the number was three and four. There is no student from Gujarat,Arunachal Pradesh,Mizoram,Nagaland and Pondicherry,the state of Minister of state for department of personnel and training (DoPT) V Narayanasami,among the top 269 in 2012. It is the nodal department for civil services examination. Three candidates were selected from Madhya Pradesh in 2012 and seven in 2011. The figures are 50 and 37 for UP,22 and 14 for Bihar and 21 and 15 for Kerala. Nothing much has changed from the pre-CSAT years gender-wise as well. In 2009 and 2010,28 and 18 per cent women were selected and 22 and 26 per cent in 2011 and 2012.
