India News | Change Mind & Sympathetically Consider Extra Attempt for Civil Services Aspirants: Par Panel to Govt

New Delhi, Mar 24 (PTI) Mentioning the hardships faced by student community during the first and second COVID-19 wave, a parliamentary committee on Thursday asked the government to "change its mind", and sympathetically consider the demand of civil services examination aspirants and grant an extra attempt with corresponding age relaxation to them.

The committee is of the opinion that COVID-19 has caused untold agony and insurmountable sufferings to many, the panel said in its report tabled in the parliament.

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The whole of India had come to a standstill, lives and livelihoods got disrupted and the student community was also adversely affected, it said.

"Keeping in view the hardships faced by the student community during the first and second COVID-19 waves, the committee recommends the government to change its mind and sympathetically consider the demand of civil services examination (CSE) aspirants and grant an extra attempt with corresponding age relaxation to all candidates," the report said.

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Asked if the Union Public Service Commission is considering giving an extra attempt and benefit of age relaxation for all candidates in view of the havoc wreaked by the first and second COVID-19 waves, the commission replied that the issue of granting age relaxation and extra attempt to the candidates due to the pandemic had been brought before the Supreme Court of India vide writ petitions filed by the aspirants.

Based on the judgements passed by the apex court, the matter has been considered and it has not been found feasible to change the existing provisions regarding number of attempts and age-limit in respect of the civil services examination, the report had said quoting the reply of the commission.

"In view of above, no such proposal is under consideration in this department," said the report of the department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice on Demands for Grants (2022-23) of the Department of Personnel and Training.

The panel, headed by BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Modi, asked the government to appoint an expert group or committee to assess the impact of changes made in the scheme, pattern and syllabus of civil services examination in the last 10 years on the quality of recruitment and administration at large.

"The expert group so constituted may assess if the present scheme of recruitment provides an equal opportunity to both English-medium educated urban candidates and non-English medium educated rural candidates," it said.

The expert group may also assess if the existing pattern of preliminary and mains examination has created a level playing field for all candidates, irrespective of their academic background, the report said.

The civil services examination is conducted annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

The committee in its report said changing the number of vacancies, at different stages of civil services examination, is not a healthy practice.

"The committee recommends UPSC to ensure that vacancies declared at the time of announcement of result of preliminary examination should remain constant throughout the recruitment cycle," it said.

The committee notes, from the data made available to it, that, during 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2019 civil services recruitment, the number of vacancies notified at the stage of preliminary examination were different from those notified at main and final stages.

For instance, in 2010, 965 vacancies had been declared at the time of notification, 1,014 vacancies at time of declaration of preliminary result, 1,064 vacancies at the time of declaration of main result, and 1,043 in the final result, the report said.

"The committee feels that if 1,043 vacancies had been declared at the time of announcement of preliminary result itself, more candidates would have got an opportunity to appear in mains examination and consequently, the final result would have been different," it said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)