Ranchi, Feb. 18: The Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) today announced the results of the first state civil services examinations, in which 246 out of 7,641 appearing candidates were declared successful.

JPSC chairman Dilip Prasad, who released the results today, said the successful candidates would be interviewed for 64 posts of deputy collectors in March.

The interview process will begin from March 18 and continue for less than a week.

The successful candidates include 123, 66, 23 and 34 from unreserved, ST, SC and backward categories, respectively.

The main examinations were conducted in July 2005, preceded by the preliminary examinations, which were first conducted in 2003 August.

About 82,000 candidates had taken the preliminary test.

The commission had to conduct a re-examination in January 2004, following allegations of the history paper leak. According to sources, about 70 questions in the history paper had tallied with those published by a guidebook.

Second time, around 50,789 candidates had appeared for the preliminary examination, which was cleared by about 9,488 candidates. But finally, only 7,641 took the mains.

JPSC?s controller of examination Alice Usha Rani Singh said: ?Out of 9,488 successful candidates of the preliminary examination, only 9,136 applied for the mains. We rejected admit cards of three candidates as they had filled the wrong subject codes. And finally, 1,492 candidates absented themselves from the mains and thus only 7,641 remained to take the mains.?

JPSC chairman said that initially when the commission had advertised the preliminary examinations in 2002, the number of posts was pegged at 75, which included 11 posts from the labour and social welfare department.

?But the commission could not conduct the examination for the labour and social welfare department posts in the absence of regulations,? he said.

The commission announced it would be conducting the examinations for the second preliminary in April. The JPSC will conduct the second mains in July.

About 81,000 applications have arrived for the second PT, which is being conducted to fill 175 posts ? 12 in the home department, 86 deputy collectors, six in the co-operative and 71 posts of sales tax officials in the finance department.