WINNERS: (from left) Alex Paul Menon, G.Saradha and G.Lakshmipriya, three of the UPSC toppers from Tamil Nadu this year, who were coached by the All India Civil Services Coaching Centre, Chennai. — Photo: VINO JOHN

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has proved its pre-eminent educational mettle once again, this time in the highly competitive Union Public Services Commission examination, the results of which were announced on Monday.

Out of the 425 candidates all over the country who have been finally selected for service, 44 are from Tamil Nadu, the highest number for any State. The State continues its unbeaten stint for the second year in a row, having sent 37 candidates to the Civil Services last year, the highest then too. Over 4.5 lakh students — 27,000 of them from Tamil Nadu alone — took the preliminary examination from various parts of the country this year, out of which 50,000 went on to the main examinations.

Out of the success list, the fourth, seventeenth, twenty-second, thirty-fourth and fiftieth ranks have gone to the State. More than 50 per cent of the successful candidates are from the portals of the All India Civil Services Coaching Centre — the only State-owned coaching centre in the country — which is run by the Anna Institute of Management for the Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department. Out of the 300 candidates from the centre who took the preliminary examination, 147 went on to do the mains, out of which 24 eventually went on to be selected for the IAS/IPS/IRS services. It has been a dream run for the centre for the past five years, going from seven successful candidates to 24 now.

More interestingly the largest number of those selected have been from non-metro centres, who had studied through the Tamil medium. Of the 71 candidates from the centre who had faced the board interview, 43 were from rural areas and out of the final selection list only six are from Chennai.

"Meticulous training by a carefully selected list of resource persons, including top bureaucrats, plus intensive training modules have helped our students emerge toppers. What makes the State's record more impressive is the fact that it has had to compete with New Delhi and West Bengal which have the best private coaching centres," an official from the Centre, said.

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