BHUBANESWAR: A day after the embarrassing debacle over spelling errors in Odia question paper set for the preliminary examination for recruitment of accountants for the Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) department, the Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC) on Monday cancelled the examination and announced that it will conduct it afresh.
Attributing the fiasco to printing mistakes, the OSSC said a fresh date for the examination will be announced shortly.
"Because of substantial errors in the printing of the Odia version of the questions in the preliminary examination for accountants under the H&UD department, the Odisha Staff Selection Commission has decided to cancel the preliminary examination, both English and Odia versions, held on April 23," read the notification. The commission regrets the inconvenience caused to applicants, it added.
The OSSC on Sunday had conducted the preliminary examination throughout the State and apart from the regular English question paper, the questions were also set in the regional language.
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The aspirants who wrote the examination in Odia alleged that the question paper was riddled with errors. Apart from spelling mistakes, the questions in Odia were set in a manner that was difficult for the candidates to comprehend, which also led to it becoming time-consuming.
The two-hour-long examination conducted in OMR ( Optical Mark Reader) mode was for 150 marks and there was a negative marking of 0.25 marks for every wrong answer. The 150 questions were divided into sections on arithmetics, logical reasoning, current events and computer/internet awareness, each section having 25 to 35 questions.
Many candidates took to the micro-blogging site Twitter to apprise the Chairman of OSSC Abhay about the issue and demanded a re-examination.
"The question paper was set in a way that none could understand it. It was time-consuming and complicated for the Odia medium aspirants," said an aspirant Krushna Mohanta.
Without divulging too many details, Chairman of OSSC Abhay said, "We are taking corrective action for the future."