Rau's IAS, the study centre as it once was

How an elite institute that gave India many of its bureaucrats lost the plot

- RAGHAV AGGARWAL

Rau's IAS Study Circle, in the news for the tragic and avoidable deaths of three UPSC aspirants on July 27, was once the go-to institute to prepare for the Civil Services exam.

It was founded over 70 years ago, in 1953, literally as a "study circle" by S Rau. Rau, who past students remember as soft-spoken, with some even calling him a legend, would teach them political science. It was an old-school, personal teacher-student engagement. The classes were held in a room in Hotel Palace Heights, behind the Odeon Cinema in Connaught Place, New Delhi.

As his popularity grew and enrollments increased, Rau hired more teachers, improved the infrastructure and eventually moved the study centre to the DCM building on the nearby Barakhamba Road. This remained its lone location for years. The one at Old Rajendra Nagar, where the recent tragedy occurred, was set up only post-pandemic. It now also has a centre at Koramangala, Bengaluru.

Besides its highly reputed teacher, the institute's draw was the small size of its batches no more than 100 students. Its competitors would stretch the number to 300 to 400. The success rate was high. Its website claims that Rau's has produced one in three of all bureaucrats across cadres since its inception.

One of those success stories is Duvvuri Subbarao, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India.