It seems that a Parliamentary Committee has suggested that IIT graduates and (medical) doctors shouldn’t be allowed to join the civil service, because the money that is spent on them goes down the drain.

The first [Reason] is financial: ‘If the per student expenditure incurred by Government on producing IIT and MBBS graduates is taken into account, it shall run into several lakhs (of rupees) if not crores. This means that when such a student joins the Central Civil Services, all the money spent on him goes down the drain.’

The second is social: When fully-trained engineering and medical graduates ditch their original calling and end up as civil service officers, ‘what is more disturbing is the fact that those many seats were blocked by them thus preventing as many students from becoming engineers and doctors.’

I am happy that they have realised the real worth of the civil services. I think we should take this to its logical conclusion. I think that the civil services should be staffed entirely by convicted criminals. It is a better option than to keep them in jail where they’ll only be a burden to society.

Actually, a similar idea has been tried in India before. Back in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries, what used to happen was that all the basketcases of British society – young men who’d gotten girls into trouble, wanted to escape gambling debts, etc. used to be sent to India to work with the East India Company so that they’d get a second chance.

They did a better job of running the country than our civil servants are doing now. I think the idea is worth trying again.