New Delhi: Amid coronavirus pandemic, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is considering holding online interviews for candidates of various exams.
Officials of the commission and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) have also held a meeting to explore the feasibility of conducting online interviews.
The commission is considering the option of holding online interviews for candidates to eliminate the risk of coronavirus spread due to the in-person interviews.
UPSC CSE interview
However, according to an official, interview of the Civil Service aspirants will not be held online. It will be arranged as scheduled.
The interviews for the aspirants of Civil Services Examination (CSE) 2019 are scheduled to be held from 20th to 30th July.
UPSC ruled out online examination
Although the commission is exploring the possibility of conducting interviews online, it ruled out online examination for CSE prelims.
As more than 10 lakh students appear in the Civil Service Preliminary examination, it is difficult to conduct it online.
Such examination can be conducted online in multiple sessions. However, it will lead to many other problems. Aspirants may start claiming that question paper of one session was easier when compared to other.
Earlier, the commission had postponed the preliminary examination of Civil Service that was scheduled to be held in the month of May. It will be held on 4th October.
Civil Services Examination
UPSC conducts the civil services examination annually in three stages prelims, main and interview to select officers for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.
Although, lakhs of aspirants take the preliminary examination of CSE, only thousands of them become eligible to write main examination.
Out of them, only a few hundred aspirants successfully clear the main examination to appear in the interview.