Cautious optimism as Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission exams begin

The conversation of the candidates for the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission State Service Examination 2023 extends beyond mere questions and answers, delving into deeper concerns regarding the integrity of the recruitment process. File

A diverse cohort of candidates, ranging from radio announcers to full-time aspirants, gathered at the Professor Jay Narayan Pandey Govt. Multipurpose Higher Secondary School in Raipur on Sunday (February 11) is discussing the screening or preliminary examination of the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission (CGPSC) State Service Examination 2023, the gateway to 242 coveted vacancies. 

Their conversation extends beyond mere questions and answers, delving into deeper concerns regarding the integrity of the recruitment process. The examination, conducted just days after a First Information Report (FIR) was filed by the State’s Economic Offences Wing against the former CGPSC chief and others, comes under heightened scrutiny.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government now in power had promised both action against the errant politicians and officials and vowed to reform the process. Its initial steps have raised cautious optimism for some.

“That an FIR has been registered instills hope, provided the probe is thorough and the guilty are punished. Also, in previous years, a recurring issue with objective examination was questions for which the options given were all incorrect and such questions would be eliminated during evaluation. This left those who had attempted them at a disadvantage due to negative marking. That hasn’t happened this time,” says Rahul Sahu, 23, appearing for the second time. 

Some present there raise doubts about at least two questions this time — one on diamond mines and the second on the smallest district — as well, but others point out that they misinterpreted the questions. There are other objections such as weightage of a particular topic or fewer Hindi questions than Chhattisgarhi ones like in the past but those are mostly subjective in nature. 

Budreshwar Dewangan, 31, a mechanical engineer who has written the examination multiple times, having gone on to qualify for the mains or secondary stage of the three-step recruitment process, says a fair procedure could have helped him qualify in the past. While he acknowledges the action taken by the new government as a positive sign, he suggests that the first sign would be making the amended model answers for these examinations public before the declaration of the results, something he and others claim did not happen in 2021 and 2022.   

Others however, feel that more needs to be done. Satyam Sahu is among the bunch of aspirants who have come to Nalanda Parisar – A 24-hour reading zone and library, accommodating 2,500 people, providing extensive facilities and a wide range of books for competitive exam preparation – after the examination. He recounts how the BJP, back in its days in the Opposition, had raised the objections about the fairness of the 2022 CGPSC examinations as well, but no action was taken even after a change of guard at the Mahanadi Bhawan. 

His views are echoed by another 35-year-old aspirant who does not wish to be named. He says that he had made it to the interview stage in 2022, his sixth attempt, and he could have qualified had the process been fair. 

Sunil Kumar, the editor of Daily Chhattisgarh, says that PSC recruitments in Chhattisgarh have been a subject of controversy since 2003 irrespective of the regime. 

“In 2003, for example, the entire marking system was tampered deliberately to the extent that someone who should have been a deputy collector became a nayab tehsildar. And those candidates are still awaiting justice,” says Mr. Kumar. 

Citing the examples such as Madhya Pradesh’s Vyapam scandal or West bengal’s teacher’s recruitment process, Mr. Kumar adds that appointments are organised rackets and manipulation happens in myriad ways. “One can tamper answer copies by putting a cross instead of a tick, you can delete the marks obtained by other candidates, there are several ways,” he says. 

Lalita Sahu, 26, a part-time radio presenter, says other areas need attention as well, such as the standardisation of syllabus, regular updation of the general studies almanack and other books published by the State, or keeping the question papers in sealed covers like it happens in other States. “There is a long way to go,” she says.