When Showkat Ahmad Parray, 35, an additional excise and taxation commissioner posted in Punjab, decided to prepare for the civil services, he did not have any lofty aims in mind. “I had no desire to become an IAS officer. All I wanted was a job,” he says. There were few alternatives for Parray in rural Jammu and Kashmir. “When I realised that openings in veterinary science could be a long time coming, I considered the civil services as a career option,” he says.