Information secured under the Right to Information Act (RTI) has revealed an unusual account regarding trainee IAS officers at the Mussoorie-based Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA). According to the details, nearly 213 IAS officer trainees from several batches at LBSNAA had to retake examinations during training between 2020 and 2026 owing to “weak performance” in different assessments.
Among the cadres, AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and UTs) registered the highest number of officer trainees who retook examinations at 21, followed by Tamil Nadu with 18 and Uttar Pradesh with 16. It was further followed by Bihar and West Bengal with 15 each, Madhya Pradesh with 14, Odisha 13, Maharashtra 12, and Gujarat 11, besides others.
According to the academy, no IAS probationer was detected cheating or adopting unfair practices during examinations in that period.
The data indicates that 1,079 IAS officer trainees underwent training at the academy between Jan 1, 2020, and Jan 1, 2026. The figures also showed the number of IAS probationers enrolled annually varied between 182 and 187 trainees, and it remained broadly steady over the six years.
According to a senior academy official, an IAS officer’s training at LBSNAA extends far beyond classroom academics and includes field exposure, district attachments, physical fitness, public administration, law, economics, and governance-related evaluations.
He noted that reappearing in examinations should not automatically be interpreted negatively, as the academy regularly assesses officer trainees on several parameters to ensure they are equipped for real-world administrative duties.
It is important to mention here that the IAS training programme at LBSNAA is a two-year induction process intended to convert civil service recruits into field-ready administrators through academic instruction, field exposure, and practical governance training.