Over 15k qualify in Civils prelims

New Delhi: Over 15,000 people have qualified in this year's Civil Services preliminary examination, results of which were declared on Monday by the UPSC.

"A total of 15,008 candidates have qualified in the preliminary examination," UPSC Secretary Ashim Khurana said. As against a record number of 9,45,908 candidates who have applied for the exam,

about 4.63 lakh had sat in the test on August 23, which is about 49 per cent of the total applicants.According to coaching centres in Hyderabad, about 450 to 500 candidates might have qualified in the examination.

This year’s examination is special on many counts. First, it has recorded the largest number of applicants from Telangana (48,834) and Andhra Pradesh (38,547).

This is the first examination after the controversial CSAT paper has been made qualifying. “The CSAT paper has been a subject of controversy ever since it was introduced due to its elitist nature.

As a response, the government first deleted the section on English Comprehension in 2014 and in 2015 it made the CSAT a qualifying paper with the 33% as the qualifying mark.

This was expected to be a shot in the arm for rural/ semi- urban aspirants and the humanities students,” said Gopala Krishna V Director of Brain Tree.

"The results of the preliminary exam were declared within 50 days of conducting the exam. It is the shortest ever duration in which the results were declared," said Ashim Khurana.

For the 2014 exam, the results were declared in 51 days. All the qualified candidates are advised to fill up the Detailed Application Form online for civil services (main) examination, to be held from December 18, 2015, a statement issued by the UPSC said.