SHILLONG: The aggrieved candidates who completed their BSC Agriculture under the State quota have accused the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) of appointing candidates who are close relatives of top bureaucracy and politicians to the fill up various vacancies in the Agriculture department.
“The whole appointment process conducted is a mere formality since the commission has already selected the candidates even before the personal interview,” the aggrieved candidates stated in a statement issued here on Thursday.
They informed that the interview was conducted for a mere five to ten minutes.
“This was all the time it took ) for the panelists of the commission to decide the future of the candidates who have spent more than seven years to complete their degree, master’s and doctorate in Agriculture. It is really unfair for all the deserving candidates who should have got the appointment,” the aggrieved candidates said. They further questioned as to why the MPSC had to hold these interviews when they already knew who they would be selecting.
“It is totally unjustified to give false hopes to the qualified educated youth,” the aggrieved candidates said.
They have also pointed out that State Reservation Policy was never followed for the posts.
Mentionably, the MPSC had called for an interview for filling up of the post of Agriculture Development Officer, Horticulture Development Officer and Scientific Officer under the Agriculture department. The MPSC conducted the personal interview from February 17 to 21 while the result of the interview was declared on February 28.
As per reports, out of the total 98 candidates belonging to the 2008 batch onwards who completed their BSC Agriculture through the State quota, only 16 of them got selected while the remaining 39 candidates who got selected are those from outside the State quota. What is surprising is that even Gold Medalist students were not selected. As per convention, the candidates from the State quota are always given a preference either in the appointment of doctors or nurses under the Health and Family Welfare department. Strangely, this time round, MPSC has selected more candidates, who are not from the state quota, to fill the various posts.
Informing that the MPSC last conducted the examination way back in 2008, they informed that most of the candidates who were deem unqualified at that time continued with their higher studies like MSC and PhD and there are some who were absorb by ICAR on contractual basis. “Many of the senior candidates who appeared in the interview had confidence in the system that the senior batch would be given priority due their age bar,” they said.
The aggrieved candidates also revealed that after the announcement of the result, it was found that candidates of 2011, 2012 and 2013 batches who appeared in the rejected list at the time of application for the posts were selected as compared to the senior candidates who had completed during the year 2008, 2009 and 2010, were deprived of their rights. “The trend has always been to absorb the seniors first as age is an issue but in the last MPSC this was not taken into account,’ the aggrieved candidate added.