BHUBANESWAR: Amid protest over alleged exam irregularities in different parts of the country, a group of students and job aspirants on Tuesday demanded major reforms in the recruitment examination system in Odisha by ensuring greater transparency, equal opportunities, fairness and timely completion of the entire selection process.
Addressing mediapersons at the State Library here, the aspirants demanded that all recruitment agencies including OPSC, OSSC, OSSSC, OUSSSC and SSB conduct examinations through offline/OMR mode wherever feasible.
They sought ‘One Day-One Shift-One Question Paper’ format, citing that a common question paper should be used for all candidates in a single shift to ensure uniform examination condition and eliminate concerns arising from different papers.
The students also demanded that the government reintroduce ‘waiting-list system’ which had been discontinued in 2020. They said it should be restored through a transparent mechanism to utilise vacancies arising after the main selection process to give a scope to those who failed to make it to the merit list despite having a good score, due to cut-off.
The students and aspirants also demanded that the shortlisting ratio be increased from the existing 1:5 to at least 1:15, giving more deserving candidates an opportunity to appear in the next stage.
“Earlier, this ratio was around 1.12. However, it has been gradually reduced to 1:5, depriving many candidates clearing prelims in civil and other key competitive exams to appear for mains,” said Sunil Mishra, one of the aspirants.
Moreover, the aspirants also demanded regular recruitment calendar by recruitment agencies detailing expected timelines for applications, examinations, results, final selection, document verification and joining.
Another aspirant, Subhajit Sahu, said they have submitted a memorandum in this regard to Governor, the chief minister, the chief secretary, GA secretary and all the five commissions, seeking necessary steps to address concerns of lakhs of aspirants and ensure a transparent, merit-based and time-bound recruitment system in Odisha.