The civil services examination is conducted by the UPSC in three stages – preliminary, main, and interview – to select officers for the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service, and Indian Police Service among others.
The preliminary examination consists of two papers of objective type (multiple choices) questions and carries a maximum of 400 marks. This is served as a screening test and the marks attained in the exam by a candidate determine if he/she qualifies for the Mains exam. The merit is determined out of the total of 2,025 marks – written or the main exam is of 1,750 marks and the interview is of 275.
CIVIL SERVICES 2020
The prelim examination of CSE 2020 was conducted on October 4, 2020, in which 4,82,770 candidates gave the exam out of the 10,40,060 that had applied. 10,564 candidates qualified for the Mains and 2,053 candidates appeared for the interview round which was held in January 2021.
On September 24, 2021, UPSC released its result for the year in which 761 candidates cleared the exam with flying colors and entered the civil service profession. Shubham Kumar from Bihar was announced as the topper while Jagrati Awasthi from Bhopal secured the second position.
MARK SHEET
On September 29, 2021, UPSC released the mark sheet of the aspirants on its official website. According to the list, AIR-1 Shubham Kumar scored 1054 marks (52.04 percent) in the exam while AIR-2 Jagrati Awasthi scored 1052 (51.95 percent).
While Kumar gained 878 in the written examination, he managed to score 176 in the personality test, which is lesser compared to the interview marks of Jagrati who scored 193 on the personality test but only 859 in the written exam. Third rank holder Ankita Jain got 1,051 – 839 in the main and 212 in the interview and fourth rank holder Yash Jaluka scored 1,046 (851 in written and 195 in the interview). Mamta Yadav was awarded the fifth rank with a total of 1,042 marks – 855 in written and 187 in the interview.
Thus, we clearly see that our AIR-1 topper’s interview marks were lesser in comparison to the others in the top five. However, it also brings to our notice that the main point to be focused on, while giving Civil Services Examination is to score well in the written exam of Mains.
The 761 recommended candidates include 25 persons with benchmark disability – seven orthopedically handicapped, four visually challenged, 10 hearing impaired, and four with multiple disabilities.
Of the successful candidates, 263 are of general category, 86 from the economically weaker section (EWS), 220 of Other Backward Classes (OBC), 122 Scheduled Castes (SC) and 61 belong to the Scheduled Tribes category.