MPSC : Mediocrity defined - Short changing candidates
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 20 2011 -

Manipur Public Service Commission building in Imphal

It is disturbing to note that everytime the Manipur Public Service Commission decides to conduct the examination to recruit officers into the Manipur Civil Service, Manipur Police Service, Manipur Finance Service and other allied services, it invariably ends up leaving the impression that some candidates may have been short changed.

It has become some sort of a vicious cycle from which the highest recruiting body in the State has not been able to break free all these years and the primary reason why this is so can be located in the totally warped understanding of this institution.

As long as the MPSC sees and views itself solely as an agency to certify who can enter the corridors of Babudom, where one can become a member of the elite suited and booted class, then it will continue to be mired in the cesspool of mediocrity without a shred of credibility.

That this has been the case needs no elaboration but it rankles everytime its sheer incompetency comes to the fore to condemn everything it touches to the status of mediocrity where there are different parameters to measure the candidates.

Who gets to gain from such a situation must be obvious to all and it is certainly not Manipur which will benefit from such a climate of sheer incompetency. The recent preliminary examination conducted to recruit officers in the Manipur Civil Service, Manipur Police Service, Manipur Finance Service and other allied services is a case in point.

In the beginning there were whispers but with each passing day these whispers have become more audible and if the allegations that some questions, 24 to be precise in the Science section of the General Studies paper, were lifted straight from a blog found on the internet is true, then what does it say about the MPSC ?

Referring to a blog and then reproducing the questions to be asked in an examination conducted by the highest recruiting body in the State just does not jell.

For one it is a clear demonstration of the extremely casual manner in which the questions were set and such a casual approach to an examination to select officers who one day will steer the course of the people and the State is hard to digest.

It also says something very significant about the lack of application of mind on the part of the people manning the MPSC. Who were the question setters ? Was the task of setting the questions outsourced to people outside the State ?

If the answer is yes then doesn't it say something about the reputation or infamy enjoyed by the MPSC outside the State ?

Or if the questions were set by natives of the State, then it is time to fix responsibilities. Going to a blog on the internet and then down loading the questions and asking it in the examination hall is something even a child of Class IX can do with comparative ease.

All recruitment process is an investment in the future and the very understanding of this universally accepted observation means that the officers who the MPSC recommend today must prove to be assets for Manipur in the future. This is the reason why examinations to enter the NDA or join the CDS are conducted.

The question is whether the very people manning the affairs of the MPSC are serious about this or not. Lifting questions from a blog and presenting it as questions does not inspire much confidence.

Such a cavalier approach does not suit the profile of the highest recruiting agency of the State.

That this fundamental point has been deliberately or otherwise overlooked all these years has been proved with each examination conducted and seriously it is time to ponder whether the existence of such a behemoth is at all needed or not.

If setting questions for the preliminary examination is going to be too tough a job for them then isn't it better to give such an institution a quiet, decent burial ? Until such the time that the MPSC thinks it can do justice to the task at hand, suspend its activities.

Let the job of conducting the examinations for recruiting the top officers of the State be given either to the Union Public Service Commission or the Staff Selection Commission.

As things stand today, the MPSC has been reduced to the status of an institution which has been set up just to massage the ego of some retired bureaucrats and politicians who can no longer win elections in their respective turfs.

It has proven to be not much more than a white elephant, a gravy train. It is time for them to buck up. There is no point in leaving sincere candidates with the impression that they have been short changed.

This trend has to stop now