MPSC gambles with the fate of CS aspirants

Basanta *

Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) Building in Imphal in March 2013 :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

Several days after the MPSC published the answer keys for the recently held preliminary exam for the state\'s civil services, the commission notified that the exam would be re-conducted again. It finally gave in to the pressure that came from many candidates who demanded re-conduction of the exam.

The candidates cited confusion with the instructions in the question paper for their demand. The commission looked up at the scores of candidates in order to verify the same, taking into account the number of questions attempted by candidates. The decision casts serious doubts on the integrity of the commission. There was no need of publishing the answer keys if the exam had to be re-conducted again.

The commission has once again failed in doing justice to the candidates. It cornered the students who fared well in the preliminary exam and did not take into consideration the hard-work and labour they have put in while giving the exam. These are candidates who gave the preliminary exam at centres where it was conducted fairly.

At their centres, pictures were clicked with mobile phones by authorities as changes were announced. There were even cameras around at some of these centres.

Everybody had a great time till the answer keys came in and once it was published, hell was let loose. It also makes one wonder why the decision came so late and when many serious aspirants have already started their preparations for the mains. This has completely derailed the momentum of many and discouraged them too.

There is no dearth to the number of mistakes that the MPSC could make. Mistakes are going to be there even if the exam is re-conducted.

Will the commission keep re-conducting the exam each time there is a mistake in the question paper? Will there be a third preliminary round of exam again if the second round does not satisfy another set of students? Again if there are mistakes with the third, then should the candidates prepare for the fourth round instead of reading for the mains.

The decision to make the students who scored well go through the prelims again is like asking 1000 students who has climbed up a hill halfway to come down again so that another group could join and climb up together with them again. Politicians take great pride in voicing the concerns of students.

One wonders where all have vanished... Or do they view just one side of the coin? There must be genuine candidates who couldn\'t attempt all the questions due to the doubt that there were negative markings, but there must be many candidates too who didn\'t have enough time to attempt all the questions despite knowing that there were no negative markings.

The commission should have considered all the possible angles as it looked up the scores of the previous exam. Above this, there were many local candidates who spent huge amounts of money for travel from their current cities of study or work to give the exam and did well. Did the commission take into consideration their plight while taking the decision to re-conduct the exam?

The commission should have come up with a smart way of sorting all the confusion that they have created with just one preliminary exam. In an exam where one finds it almost impossible to repeat the same feat again, the decision to let those who did well re-appear in the same exam is so wrong.

If at all the exam is to be re-conducted it should be only for those who were genuinely unaware of the fact that there were no negative markings. Dragging those who have done well in the previous exam is quite an injustice to many candidates.

We request the MPSC to do a proper and transparent investigation as to what happened at different centres where claims of misconducts came up.

The question of re-conducting the exam should not be based on a candidate's answers-sheet or how many questions were left unattempted but rather on a proper investigation.