Competition in UPSC to rise

Hyderabad: The NDA government’s decision to keep Paper 2 or Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) of the UPSC civil services prelims as a qualifying paper has come as a boost for civil services aspirants from arts and humanities background.

Since Paper 1 will be the only exam based on which the merit list will be decided, UPSC is expected to make Paper 1 tougher this year. Experts also say that the move will spur qualitative competition though quantitatively it is expected to remain the same. They add that this will create a level playing field for all aspirants, cutting out the disadvantages to certain sections.

The UPSC civil services prelims exam has two papers: Paper 1 and Paper 2. The latter is popularly known as the CSAT. Introduction of the CSAT in 2011 with English comprehension sections, logical reasoning, numericals and data interpretation, has said to have given an undue advantage to aspirants with engineering or science backgrounds at the cost of aspirants with arts and humanities backgrounds.

The NDA government on Wednesday had announced that the CSAT would only serve as a qualifying exam with the qualifying marks set at 33 per cent, or 66 marks out of the maximum 200, from this year.

V. Gopala Krishna, director of Brain Tree coaching centre, said, “The change making CSAT only a qualifying exam is expected to spur competition and also make Paper 1 tougher. Qualitative competition will definitely increase because the performance of aspirants will not overly depend on their background. Nobody is at a major disadvantage. But at same time the UPSC may also make Paper 1 tougher because merit will entirely be dependent on Paper 1.”

The addition of mathematics-based questions in logical reasoning and numerical ability had put arts and humanities students at a disadvantage. Experts say this is reflected in the fact that Indian Forest Service officers are now mostly engineers.

“Definitely, this move will help students from rural backgrounds as they just have to qualify in the CSAT and this will make them better equipped to compete. Final merit will be based on Paper 1 only,” said Prof. L. Venugopal Reddy, APSCHE chairman, and panelist for UPSC Civils interviews.