KOCHI: Former chief minister Oommen Chandy has written to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan asking his intervention to abolish the Preliminary Screening Tests to qualify for writing the PSC exams as it will shatter the government job dreams of lakhs of applicants.“The decision to make Preliminary Screening Tests mandatory for PSC job applicants has come as a big blow for them.
This time about 24 lakh people applied for the 191 posts, where SSLC was the minimum qualification. Out of these, only 16 lakh people could get the confirmation to write the PSC exams. So, in the first stage itself, eight lakh applicants went out of the selection process. This means, their dreams to get a government job have come to naught at least for another 4-5 years,” Chandy said in a four-page letter.
The government and the PSC have brought about the new rule by amending the Rules of Procedure (Rule 2 A). This new procedure was introduced without any discussion or a debate. The Preliminary Screening Tests are being conducted on February 20, 25, March 6 and 13. About four lakh people will write the tests over four days. “When a large number of applicants are rejected through the screening, the applicants will not be able to write the PSC exams. The new process has torpedoed the earlier process of allowing all applicants to write the PSC exams,” Chandy said.
Some of the other concerns of the applicants include: if an applicant is not able to write a screening test due to some emergency or the other, she/he won’t be able to participate in any process of the same exams at any stage. Since the next screening tests will be held in a gap of 3-5 years, many applicants will be age-over to write the exams; and in four stages different sets of questions are being asked making the applicants worried over the exam outcome.