A public job is advertised. Before you may b e considered for it, you must pay. The people applying are, by definition, the people without an income. Nobody in the government seems to find this odd. Start with the logic, because the logic is indefensible before a single figure is quoted. The state advertises a vacancy. It then requires, as a precondition of even being looked at, a payment from the applicant.

The entire pool of applicants consists of people who do not have the job in question, and most of whom do not have any job at all. That is why they are applying. So, the one group in society guaranteed to have the least money is the group from which the state has decided to collect money before it will do anything. This is not a subtle injustice requiring careful excavation. It is visible on the face of every advertisement, and it survives only because we have stopped looking at it.

A fee buys a service. This one buys a chance. Uttar Pradesh’s provincial services examination in 2024 drew roughly 5.7 lakh applicants for 220 posts. Bihar’s 67th combined examination drew 5.5 lakh for 803. In any such competition, upwards of 99 per cent of the money collected comes from people who will receive nothing whatsoever in return. Whatever is being sold here, it is not a service. It is closer to a lottery ticket, sold by the state, priced by the state, and drawn at the state’s convenience. The price bears no relation to the cost. The Union Public Service Commission processes applications for the Civil Services Examination at Rs 100.

The Staff Selection Commission runs the Combined Graduate Level examination on the same Rs 100. These are the largest and most complex recruitment exercises anywhere in the country. That single number refutes every cost-recovery claim made beneath it. If the Union of India can register, scrutinise, admit and examine a candidate for the IAS at Rs 100, no state commission needs Rs 800 and no university needs........

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