Civil Services candidates can get medical tests done in their states, UTs

Candidates appearing for the Civil Service Examination can undergo the mandatory medical examination in designated hospitals in states and union territories with the government amending the rules in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So far, the candidates chosen for personality tests had to undergo medical tests in Delhi only.

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"In addition to the designated hospitals in Delhi, the medical examination of the candidates shall also be carried out in the designated Government Hospitals in the States/UTs, in view of the situation arisen due to Covid-19 pandemic," the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said in a gazette notification issued on Tuesday.

Through the notification, the Rules of Civil Services Examination, 2019 has been amended to incorporate the changes.

The personality test for the Civil Services Examination will restart from July 19, as the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) could not complete the interviews due to the pandemic and lockdown.

The Civil Service Examination chooses candidates for the elite services of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Foreign Service (IFS) among others.

The Commission has already postponed the date of the Civil Services preliminary examination 2020 to October 4 due to the pandemic situation. Earlier, it was scheduled for May 30.

Recently, the UPSC had allowed candidates the option to change their choice of examination centre owing to travel disruption in some states.

The UPSC had given candidates two windows for submitting the revised choice -- July 7-13 and July 20-24 -- on the Commission’s website https://upsconline.nic.in.

The requests for change in the centres will be considered based on the principle of "first apply-first allot" basis, the UPSC had said. "Once the capacity of a particular Centre is attained, the same will be frozen. The candidates, who cannot get a centre of their choice due to the ceiling, will be required to choose a centre from the remaining ones," it had said.

In addition, the UPSC is also making a window for withdrawing applications between August 1 and 8. "Once the application has been withdrawn by the candidate, it cannot be revived in future under any circumstances," it said.