Centre forms panel to review civil services exam pattern

New Delhi: The Centre has formed a panel to review the civil services examination pattern, Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh said here on Sunday.

"An expert committee consisting of leading academicians, technocrats and senior bureaucrats of national repute has been constituted to revisit the entire pattern, syllabus and eligibility criteria for IAS/civil services examination," the minister said while addressing a group of civil services aspirants here.

Soon after the present government took over on May 26, last year, it was confronted with a demand for revisiting the pattern and syllabus of civil services examination, he said.

It was alleged that the present syllabus and pattern tended to benefit students from mathematics and engineering backgrounds, he added.

Based on the report of the committee, further changes in the civil services exam pattern would be contemplated, with the primary objective of providing a level playing field to aspirants from diverse streams of curriculum, the minister said.

It would also be ensured that youngsters who took up Indian Administrative Service (IAS) as a career possessed a genuine aptitude for it, he said.

The civil services examination, which is conducted annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview, selects candidates for IAS, Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.