No plan to drop aptitude test from civil services prelim exam, govt tells Rajya Sabha

There is no plan to drop the civil services aptitude test (CSAT) from the civil services examination, the government said on Thursday. The civil services examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- to select officers for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others.

The CSAT is part of the civil services preliminary examination. "No sir," was the response given by Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha to a query on the plans to drop the CSAT. He also responded in negative when asked whether the government was going to change the pattern of the UPSC civil services examination, including the replacement of interviews with a psychological test.

In a separate reply, the minister said that there is no such test which has not been conducted even after one year of its registration by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts entrance examinations for admission/fellowship in higher education institutions. "National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts entrance examinations for admission/fellowship in higher education institutions, has informed that there is no such entrance exam which has not been conducted even after one year of registration for the same," Singh said.

He said due to COVID-19 pandemic, the schedule of release of notification of examinations for the year 2020 could not be maintained from the month of April, 2020 onwards. "Due to COVID-19 pandemic situation, the declaration of result of Tier-III of Combined Graduate Level Examination  2018 has been delayed. However, every effort is being made to complete the process of declaration of result at the earliest," the minister said.