From 2017 to 2021, 25% women candidates, 63% from engineering background in UPSC Civil Services final list: Govt

The government in Rajya Sabha on Thursday said that out of 4,371 candidates in the CSE merit list from 2017 to 2021, nearly 63% are from Engineering backgrounds while 25% are females.

New Delhi:As many as 4,371 candidates were recommended in the Civil Services Examination (CSE) merit list of the last five years with the women percentage crossing just over 25%, the government said in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

This information came in as a written response from Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions while replying to a question from BJP MP Sushil Kumar Modi enquiring about the gender-wise share in the Civil Services Examination (CSE) merit list of last five years.

The number of candidates recommended for the Mains in the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 stood at 1,056, 812, 922, 833 and 748 respectively. Women candidates who cleared the examinations stood at 254, 193, 220, 238 and 201 in the said years. Out of 4,371 candidates, 3,265 were male while only 1,106 were female accounting for just over 25%.

To a question on the Stream-wise number of candidates recommended in the Civil Services (Main) Examination, Engineering tops the list with 2,783 candidates in the last five years followed by 1,033 from Humanities, 315 from Science, and 240 from Medical Science. To a question on the Degree-wise number of candidates recommended in the Civil Services (Main) Examination, Engineering again tops the list with 2,540 candidates with Bachelors Degree in Engineering while 243 from Higher degrees in Engineering in the last five years.

According to the data, out of 1,056 in 2017, 637 had a bachelor's degree in engineering while 62 had higher degrees, out of 812 in 2018, 509 were from engineering degrees, out of 922 in 2019, 582 were from engineering, out of 833 in 2020, 541 were from the same stream while from 748 in 2021, 452 were from engineering.

The medium of writing of the recommended candidates in the Civil Services (Main) Examination in the last five years included Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Telugu, English, Dogri, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Maithili, Kannada and Tamil.