PM clears reform of civil service exams

Clearing the decks for the Union Public Service Commission to move forward, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday put his seal of approval on overhauling the civil service examinations with immediate effect. Aloke Tikku reports.

Clearing the decks for the Union Public Service Commission to move forward, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday put his seal of approval on overhauling the civil service examinations with immediate effect.

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Singh - who approved the new format in his capacity as the minister in-charge of the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) - is learnt to have cleared the proposal to double the weightage for General Studies papers in the Civil Service (Mains) Examination.

There has, however, been no official word on the changes. "The decision has been made... We will be notifying the changes in a day or two," PK Misra, secretary, DoPT, told HT.

Civil Service aspirants have been on tenterhooks for the last few weeks after the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) slipped its February 2, 2013 deadline to kick-off the examination process.

The UPSC - that maintains an iron curtain over its functioning - only put out a brief notice, informing aspirants that the exam would not be notified on February 2 "due to some unforeseen circumstances". UPSC officials refused to take calls to clarify reasons for the delay.

"Someone in the UPSC should have had the courtesy to inform lakhs of candidates that some changes were proposed," an aspirant from the Jawaharlal Nehru University said.