UPSC makes public scores of civil services exam

Times of India: New Delhi: Friday, May 17, 2013.

For the first time in the history of the elite civil services examination, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Thursday made public the final marks of all successful candidates who were recently recommended for appointment to IAS, IFS, IPS and other key central services.

Interestingly, only four of them, including two women, obtained more than 50% marks in the exam which is considered one of the toughest in the country. Three of the four are from Kerala.

The move to display final marks on the UPSC website came following a direction from the Central Information Commission (CIC). Earlier, UPSC used to send the marks to all candidates individually. The absence of final marks of successful candidates in the public domain had seen a number of people moving the CIC, seeking a direction to the UPSC.

The list for this year shows that the topper, Haritha V Kumar, a woman engineer from Kerala, scored 53% marks (1193 out of 2250).

It also shows that 'general' category candidates who got between 48% and 50% marks got selected for the top three services - IAS, IFS and IPS indicating that it is tough to score high marks for even those candidates who opt for science or engineering subjects.

In the 'general' category, the minimum cut-off was 42% while in other categories, it went as low as 35%. However, a number of SC, ST and OBC candidates scored much higher marks which put them in the bracket of toppers along with 'general' category candidates.

The marks of successful candidates, which were a closely guarded secret for long, also brought into the open the scores in the interview (personality test), which carried 250 marks and which used to play a key role in deciding the future of aspirants.

An official said making marks of all successful candidates public would not only spare the commission of thousands of RTI requests every year, it would also bring transparency to the civil services examination which is conducted in three stages - preliminary test, mains examination and personality test.

Though there has been a long pending demand to make answer sheets of all candidates who appear in the mains examination public, UPSC is not in favour of this. The matter is currently pending in courts where the commission has vehemently opposed the move to share answer sheets with either the candidates or third parties.