[Official] CS INTERVIEW 2019 PREPARATION : COMBAT
Many of us have already wasted a lot of time. It's time to come out of slumber. Let's start the preparation of interview. Share your wisdom.
I have been asked questions on actual case-studies in some interview mocks and have struggled to answer them , would be good if we can have multiple approaches to below questions :
1) You are a District magistrate , you visit one of your school , where e you find good quality food being served , but one of the student complained that good quality food is only for teachers and staff , children are fed bad quality food. What would be series of actions you would take ? (Interviewer told me not to beat around the bush on hearing my answers)
2) You have come to know a scam related to one teacher registered in 40 schools simultaneously ,what steps would you take to ensure no such scams are present in your district , if any?
3) What is One Nation One Ration scheme ? Suppose you have received anonymous complaint of a fair price shop doing fraud with people and diverting funds to fake beneficiaries , what actions would you take ?
@Pseudoman To register for Mocks with Forum, email helpdesk@forumias.academy with your DAF. They are being conducted in the online mode right now.
- Confirm this with other students in private, as student may not speak in public as it can cause harassment to students, after I leave.
- Also taking help of their parents, if students are still not able to speak up about this.
- Inquiring the teacher in-charge of this scheme, without letting him know about the identity of complainant students.
- If S/he accepts it, then take appropriate disciplinary action against him/her.
- If S/he doesn't accept it, then launch a departmental inquiry against him, appointing a member of Gram Panchayat in this inquiry committee.
- And in both case, appoint a representative of Gram Sabha to check the quality of food being served to students on daily basis. That representative should be changed on daily basis as villagers may not have much time for it and it also reduces chances of collusion.
Note:- I have enough time to write this answer, you would not have had much time to respond in that mock.
Integer,Kira0705
Sultan,
I have been asked questions on actual case-studies in some interview mocks and have struggled to answer them , would be good if we can have multiple approaches to below questions :
1) You are a District magistrate , you visit one of your school , where e you find good quality food being served , but one of the student complained that good quality food is only for teachers and staff , children are fed bad quality food. What would be series of actions you would take ? (Interviewer told me not to beat around the bush on hearing my answers)
2) You have come to know a scam related to one teacher registered in 40 schools simultaneously ,what steps would you take to ensure no such scams are present in your district , if any?
3) What is One Nation One Ration scheme ? Suppose you have received anonymous complaint of a fair price shop doing fraud with people and diverting funds to fake beneficiaries , what actions would you take ?
FOR Case 1:
Step 1 : An impromptu visit on one of the days. It should not appear that teachers are being harassed on one complain ( which might not be true) because we never know, such a direct action can lead to worsening of the student teacher relationship in the future. And in a govt school, it is very important to maintain this balance as a teacher there has a lot of responsibilities + needs proper support & motivation from the govt.
Rest steps will follow.
The idea should be to have more impromptu investigations - accountability + respect for the governing authority (DM) increases.
Single day firefighting strategy won't serve in the long run.
Integer,Kira0705Let us have everything here, so that we have an archive unlike last year where all efforts were distributed over TG groups and now like null pointers we are left with no archives !
https://forumias.com/post/detail/Interview-Transcripts-of-UPSC-CSE-2019-1582198634
Can these two be merged?
Deepak802,I have been asked questions on actual case-studies in some interview mocks and have struggled to answer them , would be good if we can have multiple approaches to below questions :
1) You are a District magistrate , you visit one of your school , where e you find good quality food being served , but one of the student complained that good quality food is only for teachers and staff , children are fed bad quality food. What would be series of actions you would take ? (Interviewer told me not to beat around the bush on hearing my answers)
2) You have come to know a scam related to one teacher registered in 40 schools simultaneously ,what steps would you take to ensure no such scams are present in your district , if any?
3) What is One Nation One Ration scheme ? Suppose you have received anonymous complaint of a fair price shop doing fraud with people and diverting funds to fake beneficiaries , what actions would you take ?
My take/s:-
Case study 1:-
- Firstly , I’ll audit the place where food is being cooked, how it is being cooked and what all ingredients are used to cook.
- Secondly, I’ll try consuming the food myself to have my own experience of quality and taste.
- As the complaint was initiated by just one student, I will deploy a mean to collect collective feedback of as many students and teachers possible, like a small survey asking to rate several parameters like quality, taste of food provided in past one week.
- If i find any discripency, ill order a departmental inquiry. Will terminate the services and cancel license of food providers if and when found guilty(Raj Kumar Rao’s image flashing at the back of my mind). Will take actions against school management if they are involved too.
Case study 2
- Will issue an order to all educational institutions to check the validity and authenticity of qualificational degrees and documents before hiring and cross check those of who are already hired.
- Will circulate an announcement in local media to nudge people for whistle blowing.
- Will try conducting a webinar/ media interview or share on my social media like twitter or YouTube channel and let the residents of the district know about the incident without disclosing personal identity of the accused and caution them to stay alert.( example-Deepak Rawat)
Case Study 3
1.will try to conduct a sting operation by portraying myself as a common man visiting the shop to get entitled grains.
2.If i find the owner of shop at guilty red handed, like charging more than prescribed price or selling low quality grains, will seal his shop.
3.Post finding him guilty on the spot, will issue an order for departmental inquiry asking the owner to provide all the necessary documents to ascertain if any laundering has been committed or not. When further found guilty, will cancel his license plus seal his shop forever.
P.S.- as you mentioned that one feedback that you got was not to beat around the bush, it might be because you would be trying to catch your left ear by your right hand via moving your right arm around your neck rather than holding it directly with your left hand. In other words, though you must be suggesting valid steps but would be doing in a wrong manner, like using lengthy sentences or trying to create a story or something like that and may be that is why you got that feedback. Try working on that and with God’s grace, you will nail all the future interviews that you will give. All the best!
Kira0705,
For case study 3 similarly checking the official register/accounts could be first step to start with .
@Neyawn do you agree with approach which was suggested to me (i.e straightway start official proceedings)?
In any case do let us know what do you think a good answer could be in this case
TheNotorious,@TheNotorious Thanks a lot , all of these are wonderful points .Just a feedback/question for case study 1 , I think I got the feedback because I was reluctant to initiate inquiry or start departmental proceedings by sending an official letter so that the concerned principal/authorities are bound to reply . I too like you did not want to initiate inquiry just on the basis of 1 student complainingThe interviewer ( I later got to know is retired IAS) , told me my first step should be to take immediate action and parallely conduct checks in all schools and unless I do that things would continue the way they are .
For case study 3 similarly checking the official register/accounts could be first step to start with .
@Neyawn do you agree with approach which was suggested to me (i.e straightway start official proceedings)?
In any case do let us know what do you think a good answer could be in this case
You’re welcome and thank you as well!
Talking about wether to take a direct action first then starting departmental proceedings, here i would like to say that i will first try to ascertain the situation in case study 1 with whatever best i can, in this situation it will be my eyes and tastebuds, akin to the way , wherein a judge pronounces his judgement after listening to both the sides, after his conscience is satisfactorily met that yes he has substantial evidence/material in front to pronounce the judgement.
Rest, experts will pool in their insights!
P.S.- one immediate action which can be taken instantly is suspension of services provided by food supplier. For example, food in schools will be provided under mid-day meal scheme by some NGO. As soon as the DM gets to know about this complaint, s/he can suspend the org’s services till the time departmental inquiry is completed. Post the result, the same services can either be reinstated or terminated forever depending upon the proceedings of the inquiry.
Kira0705,TheNotorious,Arrokothsaid
@vaibhav_pandey1964146 epaper site for Times of India had option to switch between editions and publications. A month's subscription is ₹234 total.
Yes. I have subscribed to that. But recently they have changed their settings where we cannot download the newspaper on our devices. It is causing inconvenience.
Arrokothsaid
@vaibhav_pandey1964146 epaper site for Times of India had option to switch between editions and publications. A month's subscription is ₹234 total.
Yes. I have subscribed to that. But recently they have changed their settings where we cannot download the newspaper on our devices. It is causing inconvenience.
Oh, didn't know about that. I'll update if I find a solution.
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