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IAS Topper Gaurav Agarwal UPSC Interview 2014 (Dr. Kilemsungla Board)
IAS Topper Gaurav Agarwal UPSC Interview 2014 (Dr. Kilemsungla Board)
Cp: XXX, you did this, did that, worked here…why left that job for
civil services?
Me: mam, it was due to a combination of professional and personal
reasons. The professional reasons include the mature of the civil services job.
It gives a wide scope for public service, it gives wide decision making powers
at our age, it is so challenging and dynamic. Personal reasons included I wanted
to come back to India, parental aspirations and also this job has a lot of
respect in the society.
Cp: didn’t you like that job? There was so much money as well.
Me: mam, money is not everything. I realised that when one has to work
for 30-35 years money cannot be the motivation. One has to look at larger
things, so I switches because of factors mentioned earlier.
Cp: What has been the role of media in influencing people in the
elections gone by?
Me: Media played a very important role. For example, the way it covered
Mr. Modi’s Varanasi road show… the way it was showing the massive crowd… all
swayed the people. What was happening in UP was being seen right in our rooms
24×7 in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, all over India. Moreover, there was massive
advertising campaign.
M1: what are biosphere reserves?
Me: they are regions of great ecological significance so notified by the
government.
M1: difference between biosphere reserves, national parks, wildlife
sanctuaries?
Me: Sir I am not very clear about it, but from what I know, sanctuaries
are notified as such by the state government, and biosphere reserves by the
central government.
M1: And the national parks?
Me: Sorry sir, I don’t know.
M1: You are from Bharatpur?
Me: Sir I was born there…
M1: Bharatpur has a national park or sanctuary?
Me: A national park… Keoladeo National Park
M1: have u been there?
Me: Yes sir, Bharatpur is my nanihal… so as a child I used to go there on
morning walk with my nanaji (grandparent).
M1: how should we protect environment?
Me: First we need to empower and involve the local communities. Because
they are the ones who are closest to forests, know best about it and are
dependent upon it. On the contrary, our laws tend to centralize powers in the
hands of the forest department. Second, we need to change our accounting system
to one which includes the value of ecological services. Right now it is only GDP
where these ecological services are given zero weight. We need to give these
services a tangible value in project appraisals.
M1: In project appraisals, what are the social costs?
Me: Typical project appraisals only capture the market prices or costs to
private parties. Social costs are the costs to the society. There may be
instances where the cost to private party may be different from the cost to the
society. For example, if a project is being setup which will lead to migration,
the cost of migration for the private operator may be taken as 0, but it will
have real costs on society in terms of destruction of family structure,
destruction of social capital…
M2: u acted n edited a movie in the college. What was it?
Me: It was a small movie we made based on then released Kaante. :-) We
were a group of students studying in our college who get caught by the dean
while cheating in an exam. The dean expels us. So we decide to take a revenge on
the professors by looting the bank where they used to keep their savings. :-) We
get caught doing that also and end up as sweeper, waiter etc.
Cp: How did you loot the bank? Through computers?
Me: No mam, we looted it physically like in the movie kaante. :-)
M2: what was the message of the movie?
Me: It was a fun movie sir.
M2: fun movie.. Still there would be some message.
Me: Sir the message was that if one resorts to shortcuts in life, bad
things happens to him ultimately.
M2: You talked about media earlier. Social media.. what is it and what
are its pros and cons?
Me: Social media is via internet, sites like facebook, twitter, google,
blogs where users can share and interact. Its advantage is that it can preserve
freedom of speech, specially in cases of autocratic government. For instance, in
Turkey, the government tried to curb Twitter but it failed. Now this advantage
also leads to its disadvantage. Because of the anonymity it offers and
difficulty in suppressing its content… if we suppress one handle, people can
create a new one and publish… it can lead to many problems. We saw last year how
it led to exodus of people of North East from Bangalore, Pakistan uses it to
flare up communal tensions in India…
M2: u blog… What do u blog about?
Me: I write about the things which I am doing, my observations,
inferences, learnings. For example, the last blog I wrote was on the budget and
economy of India, what are the challenges, what should be done. When I used to
work in XXX, I used to write about markets, how to trade.
M2: u want to write a book.. What kind of book?
Me: Sir, I presently write about things I see, my inferences and
observations. So the book would be about that only.. what I see and learn in the
field over next 10-15 years.. the problems I see and what policy measures we can
adopt to solve them.
M2: u have a well built body n good height… Don’t you play any sports?
Me: (I was thinking I played so many sports, but to answer like that may
expose me to questions from any sport) Sir I used to play football in college.
Cp: Yes he has mentioned that in the form…
M2: what position in football?
Me: I was the goalkeeper.
M2: don’t you play cricket?
Me: Yes sir, but only at the gully, street level.
M2: what is the role of the leg umpire?
Me: Sir, first if there is any overhead wide, then he calls it because he
is in a better position to see. Then in case of runouts, he can see better.
Finally, if the main umpire has any doubts, he can assist him.
M2: should,’t we replace umpire by technology?
Me: There would be practical problems in that. The decision of the third
umpire comes after a lot of delay. So if we keep referring each appeal to the
third umpire, there would be too many breaks in the game. Secondly, even the
technology is not so accurate and we have seen some glaring errors being
committed by it.
M3: (Some long story of Bangalore local government acquiring land for
a foreign company) government acquiring land for private companies.. Isn’t this
abuse of governmental power?
Me: Sir, if we leave land entirely to private players i.e. the private
company buys it directly from the owners, there would be a market failure.
Because say a company wants 100 acres to build a factory and buys 99 acres. The
remaining 1 acre guy would get a veto power on the project. He may say give me
10 times the price of land otherwise you will not have your project. So we need
governmental intervention in acquisition of land. But the real issue here is
that the original owners must get full compensation and rehabilitation. What we
should do is to give a part of the developed land back to the original owners…
the value of developed land is generally much more than that of undeveloped
land… this way even they can become stakeholders in growth and there won’t be
any protests and development can happen.
M3: difference between vision. Mission, aims and objectives?
Me: Sir vision is at the top… its the broad overarching destination.. for
example, the government can have the vision that the governance reaches to that
last person.. the poorest man. Mission are the strategies which one can adopt to
reach vision. The mission can be, use of technology for better delivery of
services, climate friendly (:O I don’t know how this came to my mind) mission,
poverty elimination mission…
M3: Aims and objectives?
Me: (thinking and trying) Aim could be we will reduce poverty by 2% per
annum.
M3: Isn’t that target?
Me: Sorry sir, I am unable to tell about aims and objectives.
M3: difference between planned and market economy?
Me: Market economy is one where private sector plays a dominant role. The
decisions of price and quantity produced are governed by market forces of supply
and demand. Planned economy is like the one we have. There can be 2 types… one
we had before 1991 where state was dominant, it used to fix the price and
quantity produced mainly via PSUs. Then after 1991, we have moved to indicative
planning.
M3: what are SEZs and your view on it?
Me: SEZs are special economic zones where the private operators are given
a host of incentives to operate. It was a good concept… We have seen how SEZs
have led to huge development in China. But the SEZ policy has come in for
criticism that it has become a land grab scheme. Private operators are acquiring
land in the name of SEZ but are not setting up any industry there, merely using
it for real estate. Then the idea behind SEZ was to provide good infrastructure
facilities also. But the size of our SEZs is so small. China has 5-6 large SEZs
where it has provided all facilities.
What we really need is a proper implementation of the policy. We need to have a few large SEZs instead of hundreds of small ones and then provide good governance and infrastructure there.
M4: your hobby is following macroeconomy and forming trading views.
How?
Me: Sir I used to do this earlier in my job.
M4: but that was ur job, not hobby..
Me: Yes sir, earlier it was my job. But after quitting, I have pursued it
as a hobby.
M4: Do you know about the trends in TV sector? Do you watch TV?
Me: No sir, not much (watch). As for the trends, I don’t know about the
individual companies but for the sector overall…
M4: ownership of media houses (Ambani deal) by corporates and
politicians. There was a news even today. Is such a thing dangerous for economy,
for democracy?
Me: Yes sir, it is very dangerous for the economy and democracy because
freedom of media may be compromised. Most of these media houses are running into
losses which lead them prone to such acquisitions.
M4: The media can also blackmail the government and corporates..
Me: Yes sir, and as we saw in the coal scam coverage last year, Zee news
was accused of demanding bribes from Jindal for suppressing the adverse
coverage.
M4: can we prevent it? How?
Me: By separating the editor team from owners.
M4: but is separation of editing team and management possible? How is
it possible when both are in the same company?
Me: It is possible. In my previous job, there was a part of the bank
which worked closely with companies and had access to private information. We,
on the other hand, were on the public side and had no such access. This
separation was made possible by our internal compliance team, auditors and
central bank. Similarly in media, this separation should be enforced by their
compliance, auditors and an external regulatory agency.
M4: what are the things the new government should be doing in the
economy?
Me: Sir, firstly, the new government should address the policy issues.
For example, retrospective taxation, increasing fdi, cutting red tape, giving
more confidence to bureaucrats…
M4: but they are against fdi in retail.
Me: Yes sir, FDI in retail is a bit of a grey area. But in other sectors,
they are saying to allow FDI up to 49% via automatic route except for 3-4
sectors. Even in defence they are allowing FDI up to 49, 74 and 100% depending
upon the kind of technology which is brought in.
M4: what other things?
Me: They should control the fiscal deficit. Although the previous
government claimed reduction of headline number to 4.6%, but the quality of this
fiscal deficit adjustment has been doubted by many experts. They say the
government has merely pushed many subsidies to the next year. So some of these
subsidies have to be removed.
M4: which subsidy they should remove?
Me: The fuel subsidy…
M4: won’t increasing diesel prices lead to higher inflation? There are
so many critical sectors like railways, trucks which need it.
Me: Sir there are 2 things here. One, yes higher diesel prices will push
up inflation, but at the same time, the reduction of fiscal deficit due to lower
subsidy will have a reducing effect on inflation and will offset at least a part
of it. Next, what we can do is that we can compensate these critical sectors
directly via direct cash payments. This way we can reduce the inflationary
impact as well as prevent wastage of subsidy. Clearly we don’t want to subsidise
the luxury cars running on diesel. :-)
M4: is it possible politically to remove subsidies on gas cylinders?
Me: It is difficult, but given the strong mandate the new government has,
it is possible.
Courtesy: Khelo India Blog