BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Civil Services (OCS) aspirants are apprehensive of losing out on the opportunity to appear the Prelim Exam-2020 as it clashes with several other State and national-level examinations, including the UPSC viva-voce at New Delhi.
While the UPSC scheduled the interview of short-listed candidates from August 2 to September 22 and notified the dates much in advance, the OPSC has recently issued notice to conduct the prelims on August 27. Besides, several Central as well as State recruiting agencies have also scheduled various examinations, including Combined Graduate Level (CGL) exam and Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE) exam on August 24, Revenue Inspector (RI) exam on August 29.
“Conducting OCS prelims during UPSC viva-voce will deprive many who have cleared the mains and are camping at Delhi, from appearing in the State exam. This is against the State government’s policy of facilitating young aspirants to get into the all India services in large numbers,” rued an aspirant.
The Agricultural Scientist Recruitment Board has also scheduled the test for the post of Senior Technical Officer (STO) and the OUAT students will be debarred from either of the exams if the OCS exam is not rescheduled. The PG examinations of universities are also coinciding with OCS prelims.
“Unlike UPSC, the OPSC has been conducting preliminary examinations before the publication of previous year’s final merit list. This deprives many from appearing for the mains examination as many recommended candidates get qualified for mains but they mostly do not appear if they have already got their desired service,” pointed out Rajat Kumar Mishra, an aspirant.
Citing that the vaccination coverage among the 18-44 years age group is not encouraging and a large number of OCS applicants are yet to be vaccinated, the aspirants have requested Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and OPSC Chairman Satyajit Mohanty to defer the prelims and conduct after declaration of last exam’s merit list.
They have also appealed to hold the exam on a holiday as was the practice earlier, instead of a working day so that candidates employed in both government and private sectors can appear without seeking leave.