Oral Answers to Questions — India. – in the House of Commons at on 29 May 1924.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India (1) whether, in future, probationers for the Indian Forest Service will still continue to be able to be trained at any university having a forestry department, or whether they will be compelled to be trained at Oxford; and what sum it is proposed should be spent on the training of such probationers during the present financial year from the Estimates and from the funds of the Forestry Committee;
(2) whether any and what new arrangements have been made, or are proposed, for the selection of probationers for the Indian Forest Service; whether graduates of any university will still continue to be eligible for selection without further conditions being imposed; and whether any new Regulations will be allowed to be discussed in the House before they come into force?
I will answers these questions together. The Government of India have proposed that from the autumn of 1925 onwards probationers for the Indian Forest Service shall be trained at Dehra Dun. This proposal is still under consideration. No change is proposed in the qualifications for appointment, and graduates of any university in the United Kingdom or India will continue to be eligible. The Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India has recommended that no further recruitment should be made for the Indian Forest Service in Bombay and Burma, in which provinces forest administration is a transferred subject, and that the Governments of those two provinces should in future re[...]ruit their own forest officers. I cannot say what arrangements will be made, if this recommendation is accepted, for training probationers for the two provinces in question. The cost of training probationers is borne by Indian revenues, and no change is contemplated in this respect.
Do I understand from the answer that no change is to be made at present in the selection of probationers, and that they will not be compelled in any way to reside at one particular university?
No, Sir.