UPSC says no paper admit card will be provided for prelims, students will have to carry printout of e-admit cards

New Delhi: Candidates appearing for the preliminary examination of the civil services on 3 June will not be issued a physical copy of their admit card but will have to download it and carry a printout with them, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) said on Monday. In a statement with a list of dos and don’ts for candidates, the commission said it had uploaded the e-admit cards on its website — upsc.gov.in. [caption id=“attachment_3933145” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. upsc.gov.in[/caption] “Candidates are advised to download their e-admit cards and take a printout thereof. The admitted candidates will have to produce the printout of their e-admit card at the allotted venue for … the examination,” the UPSC said in the statement. In case the photograph is not clear, blurred or not available on the e-admit card, candidates will have to carry to the venue two identical photographs (one photograph for each session) along with proof of identity such as an Aadhaar card, a driving licence, passport or voter ID card and the printout of the e-admit card with an undertaking that the proof was genuine. “No paper admit card will be issued for this examination,” the commission said. Any discrepancy in the e-admit card should be conveyed to the commission immediately by email (to uscsp-upsc@nic.in), it said. Candidates were also advised to take a printout of their e-admit cards well in advance to prevent any last-minute rush or load on the website. It said entry into the examination venue would be barred 10 minutes before the scheduled start of the test, that is at 09:20 am for the forenoon session and 02:20 pm for the afternoon session. “No candidate shall be allowed entry into the examination venue after closure of entry,” the commission said. It added that candidates would not be allowed to sit for the examination at any other test venue than the one mentioned on their e-admit card. Candidates were also asked to carry black-inked ballpoint pens as they would be “required to fill the OMR [optical mark recognition] answer sheets and attendance list with a black ballpoint pen only”, the UPSC said. Candidates may submit representations, if any, on questions asked in the preliminary examination papers to the commission only through the “Online Question Paper Representation Portal (QPRep)” by accessing http://upsconline.nic.in/miscellaneous/QPRep/ in the period 4-10 June, 2018. “No representation through any other mode and after 10 June, 2018, shall be accepted by the commission,” the statement said. Candidates cannot carry with them mobile phone (even in the switched off mode), pagers or any electronic equipment or programmable device or storage media such as a pen drive, smart watches etc. or camera or bluetooth devices or any other equipment or related accessories either in a working or switched off mode capable of being used as a communication device. Calculators were also banned inside the examination hall. “Any infringement of these instructions shall entail disciplinary action against the concerned candidates including debarment from future examination/selection,” it said. Valuable items and bags would not be allowed inside the examination venue, the Commission said. The civil services examination is conducted annually in three stages — preliminary, main and interview — to select officers for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.