Par Panel in favour of Reducing Civil Services Recruitment Cycle

Par Panel in favour of Reducing Civil Services Recruitment Cycle

Recently, a Parliamentary Committee has asked the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to reduce the duration of the civil services examination selection cycle. Apart from taking a toll on the physical and mental health of the candidates a long selection process ends up wasting their prime years.

The committee has also asked the UPSC to examine the reasons for the low participation of the candidates in the  civil services examination.

As things stand today, the UPSC Civil Services Exam is conducted in three stages; preliminary, main, and interview.

The civil services examination is conducted annually to select officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

Recommendations of the Parliamentary Panel 

The Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has recommended that the duration of any recruitment examination should not exceed six months.

The Parliament panel for the UPSC recruitment cycle has underscored the need for an expert committee which will assess whether the current recruitment scheme of recruitment gives an equal opportunity to both English-medium-educated urban candidates and non-English medium-educated rural candidates.

The panel has asked Union Public Service Commission to reduce the duration of civil services recruitment cycle significantly without affecting the quality.

According to the UPSC, the average time to complete the whole selection process is nearly 15 months. Thus, the panel has recommended completing the civil services examination in six months.

Next, the UPSC needs to submit the details of the examination fee collected in the last five years.

The Panel has also recommended that the UPSC needs to furnish details of the examination fees collected from candidates during the last five years

The UPSC also needs to submit the details of the expenditure incurred by the commission on the conduct of the examinations for the same period.

The panel has also asked the UPSC to share its findings on the reasons for the low participation of candidates in the Civil Service Examination

To evaluate whether the present system of recruitment sprocess gives equal opportunity to the candidates from rural areas with non-English-medium education and those from English-medium education in urban areas.


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