An association of government job aspirants from Karnataka has written a letter to the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) demanding more subject experts on the interview panel for various posts.
The Karnataka State Competitive Examination Aspirants Association (KSCEAA) is an association formed last year following several allegations of corruption and non-transparency in the competitive examinations held by the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC). The association has been working to bring reforms to the KPSC recruitment process.
New complaints
Now, the association informed that they have received several complaints alleging corruption and unfair means in the interview process for recent posts.
“In the recent recruitment of Asst Engineer for the Water Resources Department, the interview panel had two KPSC members and one Subject expert. Candidates who appeared for interview were not satisfied with the way interview marks were awarded to them,” the letter written to the DPAR read.
After the students pressurised the commission, KPSC revised its interview panel for the recruitment of the Asst Engineer post for PWD which had two KPSC members and two subject experts, as per the clarification given by DPAR.
However, the aspirants are still unhappy with the commission’s proposal and have sought that the interview panel for the upcoming post in the Forest department include three subject experts and one KPSC member. Aspirants say that this will give a fair opportunity to all the aspirants to get into service.
“Recently, for the recruitment in the Water resource department, the interview panel had two members of KPSC and we think this is how the corruption begins. Because there was a huge discrepancy in the marks, for example, someone who bagged the highest score in the exam only scored nine marks out of 50 in the interview. But we couldn’t find any substantial evidence of corruption itself, hence, we could not do anything. But we have demanded that the panel has more subject experts,” explained Bhavya Narasimhamurthy, President of KSCEAA.
Demands for social media presence
Additionally, the association has also demanded that direct public recruitment agencies such as KPSC, Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) and Karnataka State Police (KSP) update their recruitment status through social media handles. Aspirants claim that there is currently a huge gap between recruiting agencies and aspirants regarding the status of recruitment, upcoming notifications, clarity on selection lists and many others hence, social media handles might help bridge this gap.
