Over 16,000 candidates qualify civil services prelims exam

Over 16,000 candidates have qualified civil services preliminary examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission, the results of which were declared today in a record 50-day time.
As many as by 4,52,334 candidates appeared for the examination on August 24. "Of these, 16,933 candidates have qualified to appear in civil services (main) examination," UPSC Secretary Ashim Khurana told PTI.
He said there was an increase of 40 per cent in the number of students appearing in this year's examination than last year for which 3,24,279 aspirants sat for the test.
"During previous years, on an average 68 number of days were taken for declarations of results from the day of conduct of civil services preliminary examination. However, this year the results were declared in a record time of 50 days. Successful candidates will get more time this year to study due to early declaration of results," Khurana said.

This year the civil services examination was conducted at 2,137 venues across 59 cities in the country.
The examination is conducted in three stages--preliminary, main and interview-- to select candidates for prestigious Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others.
"Commission had made elaborate infrastructural and logistical arrangements to ensure free and fair conduct of the examination," said R C Joshi, Additional Secretary in the UPSC.
The successful candidates will now have to appear in the mains examination which will be conducted from December 14 to December 20.