KSU holds protest outside MPSC office, seeks reforms

EXAM ERRORS

By Our Reporter

SHILLONG, Aug 1: The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) on Thursday protested in front of the Meghalaya Public Service Commission office seeking answers to the grievances related to the Meghalaya Civil Service (preliminary) and Meghalaya Police Service (MPS) examinations.
The KSU members tore and burned the clarification issued by the MPSC on the results of these examinations after a 48-hour ultimatum it set for the commission expired. They also argued with a magistrate, Sylvester Phanbuh, who said the protest was illegal as the MPSC is a constitutional body.
The magistrate said the protestors could have submitted a petition to the commission listing their grievances and sought to know how many of the aggrieved candidates were among the protestors.
The KSU’s assistant general secretary, Reuben Najiar told Phanbuh that they had submitted six petitions to the MPSC, which did not take any step to rectify the discrepancies pointed out.
He said the protestors represented the aggrieved candidates and the students at large.
The KSU general secretary said they would not have held the peaceful protest if they wanted to create a law-and-order problem.
After meeting MPSC chairman PR Marwein, Najiar told reporters that the commission promised to rectify the errors through an advertisement. “The MPSC chairman also assured us that the marks of the original candidates selected to appear for the interview would be displayed soon,” he said.
Najiar said the KSU demanded that the commission display the marks of the original candidates and the 65 who were selected for the interview after the evaluation of marks.
Regarding the recruitment for the MPS posts, he said the official notification of the MPSC mentioned 27 candidates who were called for the interview.
“According to the ratio indicated in the advertisement, the MPSC should have called 42 or 43 candidates for the interview. We got an assurance that the commission will rectify this,” Najiar said.
Asserting that this is a “small step to wake the MPSC up, he said they would not like to witness such errors or discrepancies in the commission again.
The KSU leader also said the recruitment to fill up the vacancies in the MCS and MPS posts should be held every year and once in five or ten years.
“We lament the inability of our local youth to crack the UPSC examinations. The state civil service examinations are a training ground for the local youth to crack the UPSC if the MCS/MPS exams are held every year,” he said.
Reforms in MPSC demanded
The KSU advocated reforms in the MPSC, insisting that the chairperson and members of the commission who are qualified should lead the commission. “The MPSC cannot be led by political appointees,” Najiar said.
He said the irregularities in the MPSC would continue if it is led by political appointees who act according to the whims and fancy of their political bosses.
“These political appointees do not dare to reject the recommendations from any minister,” Najiar said.
He said the KSU was lucky to detect the irregularities committed by the MPSC but “many lapses go unnoticed”. He cited the example of the post of a statistical officer for which two candidates were selected.
“The MPSC chairperson attributed it to a clerical error which led to the vacancy in one post being advertised as two posts,” he said.