BC study circles fail civil aspirants since budget hike

Hyderabad: BC study circles, which had been set up by the state government to help aspirants from Backward Classes to crack the civil service exams by providing better coaching facilities, have been failing to deliver for the last five years.

Though the budget was hiked from Rs 5 crore to Rs 25 crore to train students for the civil service and other competitive exams, none of the students have qualified in the last five years. Leave alone final selection, no one was selected even for the interviews.

Students complain mismanagement of funds by the officials for the mess and say officials have failed to engage the services of expert trainers and provide quality study materials despite the availability of abundant funds. They also allege that funds to the tune of Rs 5 crore have been siphoned off.

Students and BC leaders have demanded a Crime Branch CID inquiry into the misuse of funds by officials and recovery of money from them.

The government has established 22 BC study circles in each of the districts. Each district has one such circle barring Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts, which together have one.

While these centres have the capacity to train 50,000 students for various state and central-level competitive exams per year, only a few hundred students are being trained at present, that too for APPSC Group-II exams.

“Officials have siphoned off Rs 5 crore meant for training students. They purchased sub-standard study material and books worth Rs 1.8 crore, which is of no use for students.

Besides, they placed orders worth Rs 3.5 crore to obtain Discovery magazines though they quoted a higher price. Officials have received kickbacks from book publishers and dealers. They also submitted fake bills for fictitious purchases made. We demand the government to order a CB CID probe to unearth the scams in BC Study Circles,” said R. Krishnaiah of AP State BC Welfare Associations.

While a significant number of students from private coaching centres in the city are getting selected for civils, the BC study circles are lagging behind. The circles performed better when the budget was only Rs 5 crore with at least four students each getting selected for IAS, IPS, IFS etc. However, no one has been selected since the budget was hiked to Rs 25 crore.

“If the officials cannot get expert trainers to train us, they can utilise the same amount to admit students in private coaching centres. But they say rules do not permit that. If that is the case, how can they justify the purchase of irrelevant books and study materials published by private publishers for exorbitant rates? Do rules permit that?” asked P. Anand Goud, a civil services aspirant.