Age limit in civil services exam under govt’s radar

Nearly eight months after its submission, the report of Baswan committee that suggested changes in civil service exam pattern and age limit is under examination, the government has said.

The committee had submitted its report to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on August 9, 2016.

"The Baswan Committee's report along with UPSC's recommendations on it has been received on March 20, 2017 and the same is under examination," the Department of Personnel and Training said in response to an RTI query filed by a PTI correspondent.

Thousands of aspirants appear in the civil service exam conducted annually by the UPSC 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 UPSC had constituted the expert committee under the chairmanship of former human resource development secretary and retired IAS officer B S Baswan, to review the scheme of civil service examination in August 2015.

The committee is understood to have recommended reduction in upper age limit of 32 years to appear in the civil service exam, official sources said.

"The recommendations made by the committee including on pattern of civil service examination and age limit are presently under consideration of the UPSC," Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh had told Rajya Sabha in a written reply in November last year.

In a related development, the UPSC has fixed a sevenday time frame for candidates to report mistakes or discrepancies in questions asked in the various examinations conducted by it.