Over 70% Of Candidates Joining Civil Services Hail From Engineering, Medicine Backgrounds

Until the late 1990s, subjects such as history, political science, geography, public administration, and sociology dominated the UPSC ranks, with pass-outs from leading Indian institutions, including JNU and Delhi University, constituting a significant portion of the stage.

According to data compiled by the UPSC from 1975 to 2014, 4,128 Delhi University graduates cracked the examination and entered the civil services, while those from JNU stood at 1,325.    

However, in the present day and in the recent past, the majority of recruits are coming from a technical background, with engineers alone making up nearly two-thirds of the successful candidates.

A recent Parliamentary committee report pointed out this imbalance, warning that the nation’s bureaucracy may be losing its diversity of thought and, along with it, the empathy and perspective that the humanities once brought to India’s governance architecture.

A Paradigm Shift

The Department-related Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law, and Justice, in its report for 2023, Review of Functioning of Recruitment Organisations of the Government of India, expressed concerns about the growing dominance of candidates from technical backgrounds in the civil services examination.

According to the report, the share of successful candidates from engineering backgrounds rose sharply from 46% in 2011 to 65% in 2020, while that of medicine graduates dropped from 14% to just 4% during the same period.

In the case of subjects under the humanities stream, while they fluctuate between 23% and 28%, the proportion decreased from 27% in 2011 to 23% in 2020.

In total, engineers and medical professionals account for over 70% of recruits in recent years, and the trend is also indicative that the country may be losing “exceptional doctors and engineers” to bureaucracy, the panel said in the report.

Even afterwards, the data between 2017 and 2021 also echo the same skew, as 76% of recommended candidates hail from the science stream (engineering, sciences, and medicine) and only 23.6% come from the humanities.

Reverse Trend

Till the 1980s, the humanities and social sciences dominated the educational backgrounds of administrators entering the civil services at the national level. But between 2000 and 2019, the trend reversed, as disciplines such as engineering, medicine, and computer science became more prevalent. For instance, electrical engineering and medicine emerged among the top entry fields, while economics and political science declined in share.

Experts feel that the change in the trend happened due to the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT)’s impact. 

“Even though UPSC uses a normalisation formula to level scores across optional subjects, the number of engineers remains high. Many engineers still choose humanities subjects (political science, sociology, and geography) as their options due to better familiarity with the exam structure and model answers,” said Rajeev Chaudhar, a faculty at a leading civil services exams coaching centre in New Delhi.  

Many argue that the trend leads to the loss of interdisciplinary richness, as humanities graduates often bring critical thinking, empathy, and nuanced analytical capacity, the qualities that are crucial for public administration.

In its report, the Parliamentary panel also lamented that the increasing allure of civil services may be depriving sectors such as healthcare and engineering of high-calibre professionals. A disproportionately technical bureaucracy risks underrepresenting social and cultural perspectives, which are essential for inclusive governance.