An alleged incident of glaring corruption has come to the fore in the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) affairs in conducting the ASO Test 2019.
The OPSC had released that ASO examination would be held on December 23, 2018, but subsequently took a plea to reschedule the examination to January 20, 2019 on the ground that they could not be able to make arrangements for extra 70,000 candidates. In this regard, they issued a notice on January 3, 2019.
Thus, the postponing of the examination was based on personal whims and caprices of an insensitive administration. The final date of the ASO examination collided with other important recruitment examination like IBPS clerk mains, ALP CBT 2, RPF Eastern Zone and ISRO examinations.
Earlier, the protesting candidates had approached the Governor seeking his intervention of the rescheduling of the ASO Exam date. The Governor too wrote to the OPSC with an instruction, “no one should be deprived of his basic rights of giving examination.â€
The aspirants also moved SAT which gave a verdict asking the OPSC to reconsider the examination date. Consequently 30,000 aspirants to the ASO examination with brilliant academic records were safely eliminated from the scene as the OPSC neither listen to the demand of the candidates nor acted upon the advice of the Governor.
Again an alleged irregularity in the examination hall has angered many of the candidates. It is reported that about 20 candidates got tampered seal question papers in the Unit -VI Government High School, Bhubaneswar and when they complained to the superintendent it was not heard. On the other hand, the Superintendent and the Invigilator called the PCR to threaten the outrageous aspirants. One police officer reportedly snatched away the smart phone of a candidate who had already recorded all the conversations and the confession of the Examination Controller relating the tampered question.
At the Sai Engineering College Baleswar, a centre for Divyang students, while a student was doing open malpractice with the help of an Invigilator, another student named Sibu Kumar Mohanty opposed it. Thereafter, his answer papers were turn into pieces by the other candidate.
Angered by the magnitude of rampant corruptions, a large number of aspirants for ASO job have united under the banner of the “Youth against Corruption†and started dharana in the lower PMG area together with the Divyang candidates on January 5, 2019. They have also approached the OPSC Chairman to conduct an online examination for the ASO paper. But the OPSC Chairman has turned a deaf ear to them.
The candidates’ demand is genuine. The examination should be cancelled and held afresh through online. The constitutional body OPSC should be like caesura’s wife above suspicion,†opined intellectuals and retired administrators.
