Indore coaching centre proves fast tracks students to IAS, Oppn wants probe

Every fourth student who qualified for this year’s Madhya Pradesh civil service main examination from Indore’s Fast IAS academy got a call for an interview.

The institute is run by a Jain community member and all the students who qualified were also from the same community.

But the coincidence does not end there. The examination coordinator in a government college in remote Agar-Malwa district, where the students appeared for their examination, was a Jain and two examination controllers of MP Public Service Commission (MPPSC) were also from the same community.

The coincidences have created a political stir, with the opposition terming it yet another education scam in the state, which is infamous for the Vyapam racket related to manipulation in the selection process for government colleges and jobs conducted by the Madhya Pradesh professional examination board.

“We want the government to order a probe in this,” said Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress MP from Guna.

RTI activist Ajay Dubey added that it was almost impossible that so many students from a not-so-reputed institute qualified for the interview.

The list of qualifying students was declared on September 28 and included 22 of the 52 students from the institute. In all, 1,528 students were selected for the interview to 527 posts.

Denying any wrongdoing, the coaching institute’s coordinator, Chirag Jain, said, “We are ready to face any probe. We selected only talented students, hence they perform well in the examinations. It’s up to the students which centre they choose.”

Fast IAS Academy came up merely two years ago in Indore city and is run by a social organisation — Digambar Jain Mahasamiti — for the welfare of Jain community students.

The institute’s students, even those from far away Bundelkhand region in the northern part of the state, chose to travel hundreds of kilometres to appear for the written exam at a college in Agar-Malwa, a remote district in western Madhya Pradesh.

RTI activist Vinayak Parihar alleged that since Agar-Malwa has just one government college, all the candidates appeared in the preliminary exam at the same centre.

The coordinator at the centre, Shashiprabha Jain, denied any irregularities and said over 600 students appeared for the exam. “As far as successful candidates are concerned, their seating arrangements were in different rooms,” she said.

A candidate who qualified for the interview said all of them chose Agar-Malwa as their centre as they wanted to visit some locations together after the examinations. However, Ravi Agrahari, who failed the exam and is a whistleblower in the case, said he had never seen so many coincidences.

MPPSC secretary Pawan Sharma said there was no question of inquiry as there was no irregularity. He said there was a possibility of a certain number of students choosing a single centre for the preliminary exam but the successful candidates appeared in their mains exam at different centres. He added that the final selection was yet to come.

The BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government has ruled out any inquiry so far, saying the public service commission is an independent body in which the government does not interfere.