Let UPSC exam be over: Naidu

The government Thursday appealed to all political parties to allow the Aug 24 UPSC entrance examination to take place and assured that the matter of permitting all regional languages will be looked into.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said: "My appeal is that the exam is Aug 24 and students are preparing. Let us not deviate them and let the exam be over. I assure you I will take everybody (into consultation). We will address the issue in future.

"Though the changes in the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) examination format were made earlier, the students raised the matter in 2014," Naidu pointed out.

"Changes cannot be made overnight. I myself have taken the initiative over inclusion of different languages. This is an issue which needs to be debated by everybody, including the UPSC," he said in the Lok Sabha.

Students have been protesting for the past two weeks, demanding that the government scrap the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) which they term as being "discriminatory" against those who are from Hindi background.

"This matter was raised earlier. The minister (Jitendra Singh) has already made a statement. There are still some apprehensions in the minds of some of the members and also some divergent viewpoints," he said.

In an attempt to put an end to the row related to the CSAT format, the government announced Aug 4 that the marks for English comprehension will not be counted in the final merit list.

The issue was raised during Zero Hour by AIADMK member M. Thambidurai, who demanded that apart from Hindi, other regional languages like Tamil should also be included in the UPSC entrance exam.

The issue was also raised in the Rajya Sabha, which witnessed a brief adjournment over the demand for scrapping the CSAT.

Meanwhile, 35-40 students continued their protest at Jantar Mantar in the national capital, demanding change in the exam pattern. They have been staging a sit-in since the night of Aug 4.

Cornered over the CSAT row, the government had Wednesday promised an all-party meet to discuss the issue.