New Delhi: The government has sought views from the political parties on various issues relating to the prestigious civil service examination conducted by the UPSC, the Lok Sabha was informed today.
Several representations have been received from various quarters on issues concerning the scheme of examination ever since the changes in the civil service (preliminary) examination took place from 2011, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said.
“Further, the central government discussed the issues concerning the civil service examination in an all party leaders meeting held on November 23, 2014. The suggestions from the political parties have been sought in this regard before taking a view on the concerns raised,” he told Lok Sabha in a written reply.
Responding to a query during Question Hour in Lok Sabha today, Singh said that the government has no plans to reduce or alter the existing age limit for appearing in civil service examination (CSE).
He said there were “unsubstantiated” media reports in this regard and the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) had also issued a rebuttal.
As of today, the Minister said, the current status is that the upper age limit for the general category aspirants to appear in CSE exam is 32 years with maximum of six attempts, for Other Backward Classes (OBC) the age limit is 35 years with maximum of nine attempts whereas for the SC or ST category the upper age limit is 37 years with unlimited number of attempts.
Singh said that there is an opinion in certain sections that engineering or maths students enjoy an advantage over students of humanities while writing the CSE question paper in its present format and added, this issue along with the issue of inappropriate translation of certain phrases from English to Hindi, has also been referred to a committee of experts.
He said following the all Parliamentary party meeting on the subject, the DoPT has prepared a brief note citing chronological order in which changes or modifications were affected in the IAS examination pattern from time to time beginning from Kothari report in 1970s to Khanna's report in 2011 and Nigavakar report in 2012.
“This brief note has been sent to the leaders of the political parties in the Parliament so that they may offer their suggestions in writing for further changes or modifications in the exam pattern if required,” he said.
The civil service examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to select candidates for prestigious Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and Indian Foreign Service among others.
A controversy had erupted in July over the pattern of civil services examination as students demanding change in Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) or Paper II, had taken to the streets in a violent agitation, claiming it put aspirants from rural areas or Hindi background at a disadvantage.
In the wake of such protests, Singh had on August 4 said in Parliament that marks of the English section questions, asked in Paper II, will not be included for gradation or merit in the civil service exam.
