Nearly 5.49 lakh candidates appear in UPSC CSE 2026

• The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducted the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2026, including the Indian Forest Service (Preliminary) Examination 2026 on May 24 at 2,072 examination venues across the country. 

• Out of a total of 8,19,732 candidates who had applied for the examination, nearly 5.49 lakh candidates, that is around 67 per cent, appeared for the examination, as per provisional data. 

• In comparison, in the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2025, out of a total of nearly 9.5 lakh candidates who had applied for the examination, approximately 61 per cent, that is around 5.8 lakh candidates, had appeared for the examination.

• Among total candidates who had applied for the examination, 11,224 belonged to the categories of Persons with Benchmark Disability (PwBD) (disability of 40 per cent or more) and Persons with Disability (PwD) (disability of less than 40 per cent).

• The examination was held in two sessions, commencing with General Studies from 9:30 am to 11:30 am in the forenoon session, followed by the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm in the afternoon session.

• Delhi recorded the highest application with 70,885 candidates across 144 venues, followed by Hyderabad with 44,209 candidates at 100 venues, while Patna recorded 39,147 candidates across 79 venues.

• Mobile signal jammers were also deployed at all examination venues to ensure the fair and secure conduct of the examination.

• For the first time this year, the UPSC introduced real-time face authentication of candidates at examination venues to prevent impersonation and strengthen the integrity of the examination process.

• The indigenously developed system through the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) of the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) worked across all examination venues.

• This was possibly the largest real-time face-authentication conducted by the UPSC.