None from PU qualify UPSC, students attribute it to lack of sound academic environment | Patna News

Patna: None of the students of 108-year-old Patna University (PU), once considered a “UPSC factory”, cleared this year’s civil services examination, the results of which were announced a couple of days back.
Senior academics said until a few decades back, the products of the seventh oldest university of the country used to occupy positions among the top 10-20 in the merit list of the UPSC examination, but that is totally lacking now a days. Patna Science College principal Atul Aditya Pandey said present-day students of PU colleges and postgraduate departments have no ambition as such to become IAS or IPS. “They are at best are interested in BPSC or some clerical grade examinations conducted by banks, railways or other state-level recruitment bodies. The UPSC aspirants join higher educational institutions in Delhi,” said Pandey.

Patna University Students’ Union president Maithili Mrinalini reasoned that poor student-teacher ratio, lack of basic infrastructure and the ever-changing education system serve as great deterrents to the students. Amid scarcity of every thing required for a sound academic environment, they can’s think great or aim high, said Mrinalini.
Former vice-chancellor (VC) Rash Bihari Prasad Singh there was a time, when an alumnus of PU could be easily found in any district of the country as its collector or superintendent of police. The PU then also ran an IAS coaching centre at the geography department of Patna College where senior teachers of the university used to guide the aspirants during the evening hours free of cost, said Singh.
A senior academic said in 1970, three from Patna Women’s College (then under PU) — Anuradha Mazumdar, Lakshmi Chakraborty and Shashi Uban — secured the first, second and fourth positions respectively in the UPSC examination. While Mazumdar and Chakraborty had opted for the IAS, Uban joined the IFS. In 1987, Amir Subhani had topped the exam, and in 1996, Abhash Kumar Jha figured among the top three successful students.
At the PU’s centenary celebrations in Oct 2017 at Patna Science College in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, CM Nitish Kumar had proudly said that in the seventies and eighties, over 20 students of PU used to clear the UPSC examinations every year. He had urged the PM to grant a central status to the PU, so that it could regain its old academic glory, but that did not happen, said then VC Singh.