The Civil Services examination is conducted in three stages: preliminary, mains, and interview — to choose candidates for IAS, IPS, IFS and IPS, among others. The prelims comprise a 200-mark General Studies Paper and a 200-mark Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT).
The protesters’ chief bone of contention is the aptitude test or CSAT, which gives more weightage to English, they say.
In 2011, the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) had changed the format of the paper and introduced CSAT, which includes logic and reasoning, mental ability, basic mathematics, English comprehension skills and data interpretation.
Since 2011, aspirants have been protesting against the revised format. The new Government had formed the Arvind Verma Committee to study the format. The Committee had reportedly favoured the
The Government on August 4 announced that English Comprehension (20 marks) in CSAT will not be included for gradation or merit and the candidates of 2011 may get a second chance to appear for the test.
A Civil Service aspirant in the general category gets six attempts, OBC candidates get nine attempts, while there is no restriction on the number of attempts for SC/ST candidates. Moreover, SC/ST aspirants get five years over and above the age restriction of 32, while the OBC category gets three more. A special concession of five more years is also given to aspirants who were resident in J&K during January 1980 and December 1989.