New Delhi: The Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) will soon be a reality as the government has decided to implement the new examination scheme by replacing the current civil services (preliminary) examination (CSE) from the next year.

The CSAT is meant to be an examination to shortlist candidates for the civil services (main) examination. It will be conducted every year for recruiting officers in the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), Indian Foreign Services (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS) as well as other elite government services.

The proposal for the introduction and implementation of CSAT to replace he existing preliminary civil services examination from 2011 had been approved by the Central government in March this year. The Centre had also asked the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) to formulate a syllabus for it.

Minister of State for Personnel Prithviraj Chavan said that the central government will be soon notifying about the new system of examinations for UPSC including its syllabus, which is currently being worked out.

"In CSAT, one of optional subjects which a candidate could have chosen out of 23 optional has been replaced with common paper on aptitude test. The syllabus of CSAT is being worked out," he informed.

According to ministry officials, candidates will now be required to appear for two objective type papers that will lay emphasis on their aptitude for the civil services in addition to their ethical and moral dimension on decision making.

Both papers would have an equal weightage of marks and all candidates would be required to give both papers instead of the earlier one common paper on general awareness and one optional paper on any subject of the candidate's choice.

The change is only being implemented for the first of three stages of the CSE. Until a panel of experts studies the complete aspects of the whole CSE examination system, the second and third stage of the exam scheme would not be modified.