UPSC aspirants demand compensatory attempts for prelims between 2011-15

Ananya Panda

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 16

UPSC civil service aspirants, who appeared in 2011 prelims, are on a hunger strike for 17 days now in the capital demanding that the central government give them compensatory attempts in lieu of prelims held during 2011-15 as governments has done in past whenever changes were introduced in the pattern.

They claimed the matter concerns aspirations of around 2.5 lakh affected aspirants whose at least four attempts were disturbed owing to “abrupt and frequent” alterations in the pattern after the introduction of CSAT in 2011 prelims. General category candidates are allowed maximum of six attempts till 32 years.

Aspirants, with four among them on hunger strike since December 31 despite their depleting health at Mukherjee Nagar here, refuse to give up pointing out that in the past whenever changes have been made in the pattern of these exams by the UPSC — be it during the Morarji Desai government (1979) or the PV Narasimha Rao government (1992) — three compensatory attempts were provided unlike this time.

Aspirant Saurabh, who hails from Kanpur, said the move to replace the optional paper having 200 marks in prelims with CSAT in 2011 was “discriminatory” and put the candidates from Hindi, vernacular languages and Humanities at a disadvantage as also observed by three commissions, including one headed by Professor Arun Nigavekar, set up to look into the issues arising since then.

“Candidates prepare for years to appear for the exams and due to sudden changes by the UPSC in the exam pattern and syllabus, their efforts are wasted. We have been raising our demand for three years, but the government has not bothered to listen to us. Some of our friends are on hunger strike for 15 days and their health is deteriorating,” said Sri Om.

“Before CSAT was included, candidates selection from rural backgrounds with Hindi and vernacular language as their medium was a little over 47 per cent while now it has come down to 2.16 in 2018,” said Saurabh demanding the government to allow them compensatory attempts to make up for the three years lost to the frequent changes in the pattern.