Regarding surname mismatch in academic certificates

If your surname is missing in the academic certificates while the same being mentioned in the caste certificate, then it's not at least the scenario of surname mismatch. In addition, your complete name in the government record i.e., caste certificate would do good while preparing and applying for the PSC examinations.

There is no need to remove surname from caste certificate.

You have to ensure that all your academic certificates are similar in nature in respect of your name and those certificates are devoid of your surname.
If such an uniformity is being seen in your certificates, you have not to worry regarding your caste - certificate containing your surname as well.
Other than the academic certificates, you will have to ensure that your PAN card and Aadhar card do reflect similarities in respect of appearance of your name.
The school admission register forms the basis of your authentic document of your school level certificate and at the later stage, all your certificates will follow accordingly.
Hence you need not worry on that account during the stage of document verification.

It is always better to have the full name in all academic certificates. Caste certificate is not considered as proof of your name. If your PAN Card and Aadhaar card is also not having your surname and they are also having the same name as in your academic certificate, you may not have any problem. But I feel your surname also should be there.

So you can go for an affidavit and then published in a newspaper and then gazette publication is to be done. You can contact a good lawyer in your area. He will guide and see that you will get the required affidavit. Once the affidavit is ready you can publish the information of change in your name in two newspapers one local paper and another English paper. Then you have to apply for publication in a gazette. Once the changed name is published in the Gazette. That will complete the process and officially your name is changed.

In this context it is better to change the name in a format where accepted internationally. It decided one's name into three sections. Find below an example.

Given Name – Vimal
Middle Name – Uxxxxxxx
Surname – Vxxxxxxxxx
It is better to maintain your name as per the above mentioned format. Because important documents like passport and documents from other countries prepared as per that structure.
Now in your case, there will not be any issue by having surname in caste certificate and the same absent in academic certificates. You may not face any problem from the authorities in india, but it is good to follow your name as per the order which I mentioned above, as it is followed internationally.

Find below procedures to change your name in India officially.
1. Affidavit Submission: An affidavit needs to be prepared for name change and the same to submit to the authorities.
2. Advertisement Publication: An announcement should be published in the newspaper locally.
3. Gazette Notification: A notification should be published in the Gazette of India by the authorities regarding the name change after receiving your application.

Whenever there is a document verification, there should not be any mismatch between the various educational certificates as well as other certificates belonging to the person. So, there should be consistency of name everywhere. It is not necessary that a person should write his full name including middle name and surname. Even a single word name will suffice. What is important is consistency and everywhere that single word should come as name.

So what you can do in this case is that either you get a corrected caste certificate where only your first name should appear. Alternatively you can go for a legal affidavit to be signed by you and countersigned by a court magistrate where the detail about your correct name are mentioned. Once you give this affidavit, it might require publishing in newspaper and Govt gazette for confirmation of the name. This you have to find out from a lawyer who would help you in this matter.

In India, every place has its own formate and thus many follow the formate that is followed in their place and thus during passport or cental jobs, we panic as we find errors or name mismatch in our documents. These are the common mistake that people face and panic. Many a time, our forms are filled by the authorities or agents who fill as they know and this affects us in the later stage. Some use the full formate, some only initials while some don't write their surname. As we know the name mismatch between our certificates is common and we need to correct the same as soon as possible. The common format that is followed internationally is SNF formate i.e. Surname, Name then Father's name. Many have their caste name as their Surname like Nair, etc, some have House name as their Surname like Kunnathuparambil, etc, while some have Surnames like D'souza, etc. Always try to complete the format in the internationally accepted format as it will help to keep your details the same and will not affect you in the later stage.

While filling various forms, we might have noticed the option which read "List other names used in your application documents". Here we can provide other names that are used in our documents as this will help them to know that the documents we submitted along with the application will have the following names which may be different from each but it stands for the same person.

Always keep a common or consistent format and see to it that you have your name corrected as soon as possible and is the same in all documents. If you have your passport, see to it that all your documents match with that of your passport as Passport is a valid proof for every verification.

You can do the correction and do the same by making an affidavit, announcing the same by publishing it in any local newspaper and in the Gazette of India by the authorities which will help you to get it rectified. You can contact any known lawyer as they will be able to help you to make an affidavit and publishing the same with a nominal fee.