Is UPSC CSE 2025 Prelims postponement a viable option?: Insights from a scholar researching the exam
Following military escalations from Operation Sindoor, and disruptions along the India-Pakistan border, the Union Public Service Commission Civil Services Examination (UPSC CSE) Prelims 2025 candidates from impacted areas are urgently requesting a postponement of the May 25 exam, citing significant disruptions to their exam preparation and daily lives.
But can the postponement be a viable solution to the problem
EdexLive spoke to Debanshu Panwar, a research scholar at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. His research encompasses the UPSC-CSE coaching economy in Karol Bagh, and Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi.
Are the demands of the aspirants to postpone the Prelims justified, given the ongoing Indo-Pak "cold war" tensions?
I personally believe that if a few aspirants are demanding the postponement, then most of them would be attempting the exam for the first time.
Given that many aspirants all over India are in their mid-twenties, and not everyone is new to this rat race, such a postponement can aggravate the level of uncertainty and frustration in their minds. What I want everyone to focus on is ‘time’, which, in my opinion, is highly subjective.
Even if the aspirants do get more time, it would still be time spent in uncertainty, anxiety, and waiting for the exam. While the new aspirants may afford to spend a few years in this arena (even though I believe they should not), how much more time can an aspirant afford if they are attempting to crack this exam for the fifth time?
The pandemic disrupted several examination schedules. Do you believe requesting another postponement could cause issues?
The exams for recruitment to the Civil Service, not only for the Central but also the states, tend to follow a pattern or a cyclical/annual timeline. Both the coaching institutes and the aspirants follow such patterns and prepare accordingly.
The coaching institutes prepare to achieve as many ranks as possible, and the aspirants prepare to achieve a top rank as soon as they can.
It depends on the nature of postponement. If all three stages (Prelims, Mains, and the Personality Test) are conducted on time, then it should not be a problem. However, if the publication of the final list of candidates who make it through the final round is delayed, then it is a problem for sure.
More than such a postponement, a greater issue is paper leaks and so on, which often leads to the cancellation of the entire exam, and then the recruitment bodies or the public service commissions have to re-conduct the exams all over again. This has been a common feature in many state service examinations.
In 2021, when I was attempting the Haryana State’s PCS exam, I cleared the preliminary exam. For this, I had to travel to Kurukshetra from Noida. Sadly, a few days later, it came to my attention that the question paper had been leaked, and the prelims would be conducted again. This time I was allotted an exam center in Hisar, Haryana. Unfortunately, I was not able to clear the prelims then.
Not just PCS exams, such leaks and retests have now been a common occurrence in the last few years. It happened in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) as well.
Moreover, exams like the National Eligibility Test - Junior Research Fellowship (NET-JRF) exam are not conducted on a regular basis. After the pandemic, when the NET-JRF exam was to take place after two years, both the annual rounds of examination were clubbed together and conducted. I’m not aware if the number of seats (of selected candidates) was increased due to that.
While the concerns of aspirants facing challenging circumstances may carry some validity, can bureaucratic examinations be deferred even during national emergencies?
Again, more than postponement, unrealistically high competition due to lack of seats, and high rates of unemployability among our graduate youth are much, much greater issues. In 2025, India’s overall graduate employability rate is 42.6%, which has actually decreased from 44.3% in 2023.
UPSC aspirants who rigorously prepare often oppose postponements, as they disrupt their schedules, while others, especially from border areas like Punjab, Rajasthan, and J&K, find the current situation "traumatic" and struggle to focus. Whether postponed or not, the decision may seem biased. How can a balanced solution be found?
I don’t have an answer to this; it’s for policymakers to ponder.
But here's some food for thought: The Manipur conflict started on May 3, 2023, and the “border issue” on the (north) eastern front still has not been resolved, sadly. Since then, two annual rounds of UPSC CSE examinations have been successfully conducted, without any postponement.
