EWS quota bloc trails OBCs in UPSC mains, but turns tables in interviews

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NEW DELHI: The upper castes availing the economic backwardness quota have trailed the backward classes in the Mains examinations of the Civil Services competition for the last two years.
But the dynamic of competitiveness between the two reserved categories is complex, as the forwards have prevailed in the ultimate test by virtue of greater score in the 'interview' part of the competition.
In the recent results for CS-2024, the cut-off for the Economically Weaker Sections category in the Civil Services (Main) exams was 696 marks as compared to 702 for the OBCs. But in the Final results after the interview, the EWS had a cut-off merit of 917 marks as against 910 for the OBCs.
Under the EWS category, the non-SC/ST/OBC get 10% reservation on the basis of the poverty criteria.
The cut-off marks are the minimum qualifying score for a social bloc availing the reservations, and they vary across the categories of SC, ST, OBC, and EWS. In the Mains part of the CS-2023, the OBCs scored a cut-off of 712 as compared to 706 for the EWS. But in the Final, the OBCs trailed with a cut-off of 919 to the EWS which had 923 as the minimum marks.
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The Mains-Interview contrast is seen as surprising. Shashank Ratnoo, a lawyer who specialises in reservation laws and issues, said, "There is no starkly noticeable reason for OBCs to have more marks in the Mains than EWS, yet lose out in the final cut off on account of EWS scoring better interview marks. It possibly shows that the EWS group has no or lesser social disadvantages that hurt competitiveness."
Interestingly, the contrast in the merit for OBCs and EWS in the Civil Services Examinations has been a see-saw.
In the wake of the fresh EWS quotas introduced in 2019, the OBCs dominated the Mains and the Final both in 2019 and 2020. While it was surprising that EWS, which has groups with lower social handicaps, trailed behind the OBCs, it was viewed as result of the fact that a new quota regime had just come into effect and the facts about its procedures and criteria had not percolated down to the wider eligible umbrella.
Later, the EWS overhauled the gap with OBCs and came to score higher in the examinations.
According to Ratnoo, what is surprising is that EWS has notched a quicker rise in merit than possibly any social sub-group has done after coming under the reservation system. "It is interesting that the Centre (DoPT) recently ordered an inquiry into the income certificates of some EWS candidates who were selected in the civil services after the Final exams. Such closer scrutiny may help understand the issue better.
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