The man behind the world famous Khajuraho dance festival, PC Sen was also responsible in increasing MP Tourism’s budget and bringing Air India staff’s emoluments at par with the private sector.
FOR Probir Chandra Sen, his indecision is what landed him into the civil services. Grandson of AN Sen, former judge of the Calcutta High Court, and son of Pratap Chandra Sen, a top executive in Burmah Shell, Probir, better known as PC Sen, had an admiration for the Communist Party of India and the Ramakrishna Mission, but was not fully convinced by either.
“I thought of becoming a Marxist or joining Ramakrishna Mission when I was at Cambridge (He did his post graduation from King’s College in History), but neither convinced me fully. I chose IAS as a compromise,” he says.
Besides, civil services promised him a steady income, something his family was in need of as his father had passed away at a very young age leaving no money. He was offered a job in Shell. Instead, he worked in Clarion for two years.
Sen’s uncle, Mohit Sen, was a card holding member of the Communist Party of India and a theoretician. His great grandfather from the maternal side, RC Dutt, was one of the first Indians in Indian Civil Services (ICS).
Sen cleared the civil services examination in 1967. He joined Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) as an IAS probationer on July 31, 1967, one month after his other colleagues in the batch joined. The delay was caused because the government wanted to be sure he had no communist leanings. In fact, his family met the Governor of Gujarat, Sharda Mukherjee, and the then Minister of State (MoS) for Home at the Centre, VC Shukla, to intercede.
Sen met his wife Binoo, also an IAS of the same cadre and batch, in the Academy but the two tied the knot a couple of years after serving their probation.
His first posting was in Gwalior as an Assistant Collector. His Collector, NN Tandon, was an exceptionally talented and inspiring person and invited him to stay with him for the year under training.
This story is from the July 2017 edition of gfiles.
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This story is from the July 2017 edition of gfiles.
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