Extra time for blind in UPSC civil service exam

Blind students appearing for civil services examinations will be given extra time for writing papers in Sunday's preliminary exam, an official statement said Friday.

"All the visually impaired category candidates appearing in the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2014, to be conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), will be allowed an extra time of 20 minutes per hour for both Paper-I and Paper-II of this examination," UPSC said in a statement.

This means that these students will get an extra time of 40 minutes for writing paper I and same for paper II. For other students, both the papers are of two hours' duration.

Following protests last month with students demanding scrapping of the Civil Services Aptitude Test introduced in 2011, the government notified that marks of English language will not be included for merit and gradation.

So complying with the government's decision, UPSC added students should not attempt the English questions in paper II, as the same will not be considered for merit and gradation.