IAS topper Tina Dabi misses out on cadre of her choice — Haryana

NEW DELHI: Topping the civil service exams has not got Tina Dabi the cadre of her choice, Haryana. The Delhi girl will have to settle for Rajasthan.

Dabi isn’t the only topper to be disappointed by the government’s cadre allocation. Secondrank holder Athar Aamir Ul Shafi Khan, who hoped to serve in his home state of Jammu and Kashmir, will join her in Rajasthan along with third rank Jasmeet Singh Sandhu, who is from Delhi. Hours after the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) announced the results in May, Dabi, a political science graduate from Lady Sri Ram College, had said, “We all know about the skewed sex ratio (in Haryana). That is why I would like to contribute my efforts for empowerment of women there.”

Haryana has 879 girls for every 1,000 boys, according to the 2011 census, against a national average of 943 to 1,000. Dabi can still make her mark in Rajasthan, a state with a better sex ratio (923) than Haryana but still far below the national average. A high rank may ensure candidates who crack the UPSC exam — only one in over 400 aspirants clears the three-stage civil services test — get the civil service of their choice. But it is no assurance that they will get their preferred state.

The allocation of cadre — a state or group of small states and union territories — is a complex process that depends not just on the candidate’s rank but also on vacancies, quotas and whether the candidate hails from the same state (insider) or from a different state (outsider).