Flood-hit Kerala training ground for IAS aspirants

Alappuzha: The flood-hit areas in the state appear to be a good training ground for the civil service aspirants. At least 120 UPSC hopefuls, including 66 boys and 54 girls from different parts of the country, are currently in action in Alappuzha and another team is working in Ernakulam district.

Around 40 youngsters aged between 16 and 25, who are undergoing training at an institution named Chanakyamandal Parivar in Pune, have landed in Kainakary panchayat and cleaned the flooded government offices on Thursday.

Many of them want to join the Indian Administrative Service and were sent here for hard training by their teacher Avinash Dharmadhikari, a retired IAS officer, who believes in human-centric civil service.

Their work began about 8.30 a.m. after a brief motivational speech by Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac. They walked down the bunds on the Pampa riverside for about 100 metres to reach the panchayat office from the jetty, carrying cleaning materials, including long-handed brushes, spades, buckets and shovels provided by the panchayat administration and cleaned the office within three to four hours. They brought in buckets of water from the nearby pipeline, washed the floors with brushes and took out the furniture.

By noon, they sat in front of the E.M.S. memorial community hall near the Pampa river and had simple lunch provided by the panchayat office. “When we left for Kerala from Pune, our teacher reminded us that this journey was not disaster tourism,” said Mrinalini Nimbale, one of the co-ordinators.  “We are from different parts of the country, but we all aim at becoming IAS officers,” she added.

Nimbale hailing from Pune wants to work on the ground and help the poor to build up their lives. “We have not seen before such a hard battle to survive. We came here for a week but we may extend the stay as the people here need more help,” she added.

 Shubham Paithankar hailing from Nasik said that they wanted to do more work as per the direction of panchayat authorities. This service gave them first-hand information which would be an asset in their future career, he said.