Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar remarked on Friday that sundry statements portraying him as the Prime Ministerial candidate were upsetting and of no consequence. Mr. Kumar’s remark came in the light of the former External Affairs Minister and senior Janata Dal (United) leader, Hari Kishore Singh’s recent statement that Mr. Kumar was a suitable Prime Ministerial candidate.
“Those who toss around my name in this fashion cannot be my well-wishers. I do not want to say much on this. This is useless talk. I feel sorry about such statements,” Mr. Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of the 15th National Conference of the chairpersons of State Public Service Commissions.
Speaking at the conference, Mr. Kumar called for an “attitude test” for civil servant aspirants to ascertain their inclination to public service.
“Many who pass out of IITs appear for the civil service examinations. The country spends a lot of money on an IIT student. So, there should be an attitude test to know if the candidate is really interested in public service,” Mr. Kumar said.
He stressed the need for transparency in the recruitment process. “The biggest challenge when I came to power was the public service commission. If you have to pay to get recruited or get a posting then what is the use? And as recruitment rises, there should be a consummate increase in the recruitment infrastructure,” he said.
Driving home the need for administrators to have a good rapport with the public, Mr. Kumar blamed the Centre for the dilution of the District Magistrate’s (DM) office.
“The DM’s role is to monitor the fund utilisation of projects and maintain a rapport with the people. However, today the DM is caught between the engineer and the contractors,” he said.
In his tenure, there were no complaints regarding the selection of public servants, Mr. Kumar said.
