The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams have taken a back seat with the Common Admission Test (CAT) for an MBA catching the fancy of the students of the state.

For graduate Aditya Prasad it is the CAT exams, which are a priority now, and not the UPSC.

He is among the fast-growing breed of youngsters from Bihar seeking a non-government job in private sector. Aditya said, "The drawback of a government job is that to climb up the ladder you need to have a godfather or you need to keep your boss happy."

Another student of Patna Women's college, Nandidi remarked, "Students now have woken up to more than just the UPSC and the BPSC exams. That is not the trend anymore."

Manager of a local tutorial institute Shailendra Kumar pointed out that now a days almost 20 to 25 per cent of students in the IITs are from Bihar. "If you add those getting into the IIMs, I think the number will be substantially much higher. Out of 1,300 seats, a conservative guess would be almost 120 to 130 Bihar students," he added. The winds of change are blowing with a large number of students of the state eager to join the race for corporate world.

Santosh Kumar, an economics graduate from Patna University, was quite forthright in admitting that it was the fat salary packages and better job openings that had made CAT one of the major priorities of Bihari students now as compared to the UPSC.