Bhubaneswar, Aug. 23: Aspirants who had appeared for the assistant section officer (ASO) examination in November 2015 have demanded a retest alleging irregularities by the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC).
About 75,000 candidates had appeared for 811 posts advertised by the commission. These included 11 posts at the governor's secretariat. The advertisements had appeared in 2012 and over 1.5 lakh candidates had applied for the post.
Besides accusing the commission of not providing copies of the answer sheets and not revealing the cut-off marks, the candidates have also brought other allegations such as absence of roll numbersat the exam centres, broken seal in question paper packet, allowing mobile phones inside the exam centre and so on. The students have alleged that many candidates with poor merit had got the jobs while many deserving candidates had not.
The candidates have been protesting at the Post Master General Square for the past week. They have objected to the commission's decision to complete the process of recruitment by August 26.The order was issued on August 15. "What was the urgency of issuing an official notification on August 15 when it was a national holiday?" wondered Debanshu Nayak, an aspirant.
The state government had called for applications for ASO jobs after a gap of 19 years.
"Despite our repeated complaints, the OPSC has miserably failed to make any rectifications or take any action in this regard," said Nayak.
Earlier, some of the candidates had moved court and lodged complaints with police against the alleged mismanagement. Yet another group of students alleged a scam in the assistant executive engineer (AEE) recruitment process.
The students have alleged that many questions were out of syllabus and that most of the answer keys provided by the OPSC were wrong.
The students offered to produce OMR sheets that showed how candidates securing less marks got selected. The recruitments have been given despite the 73 pending cases in court, said a student.
The BJP today came out in support of the candidates and sought a CBI probe. "The cases must be investigated by the government and the scam busted," said BJP vice-president Samir Mohanty.
In a related development, chief minister Naveen Patnaik directed the OPSC to complete the entire process of exams in 10 to 12 months . Currently, it takes 15 months for the entire exam process.
