It appears that no state option is being sought in CGL 2014. I do not know whether it is a conscious decision by the SSC not to seek state options or a genuine omission. Some ‘brilliant mind’ has posted in a closed group that introduction of state options by me during my tenure in SSC was a serious mistake. He has also said that SSC has now gone back to the earlier practice when it would only make allotment to posts and the departments would allot the candidates to individual posts. It is for SSC to clarify whether this will indeed be the practice, if it is not outlined already in the CGL Notice. They owe it to the candidates to inform them what they are in for. The reasons for introduction of state-wise options, despite the difficulties in result processing, were: 1. The proposal of SSC to restore, at least in part, the pre 2000 practice of local candidates being considered for posts in each state, based on recommendations of the Expert Group of 2009, was turned down by the Government. State options enabled the candidates to strive to get the state of their choice if they were adequately meritorious. 2. There were reports of favouritism in allotment of candidates to vacancies in different states, especially in the departments where Inspector Raj is still prevalent and in the engineering departments. Ministerial discretion –read it as interference by junior ministers- in allotment was also reported. 3. When the recruiting body does its work diligently and honestly, it was necessary that any post recruitment manipulation in allotment by the departments needed to be eliminated. 4. As there is no government rule that candidates are debarred from applying for the posts in which they are serving, the system of state allotment encouraged them to apply again as they could opt for only their home state or states nearby. There was, therefore, better utilization of vacancies. More than everything, there was total transparency in the allocation as candidates knew their options and also cut offs for individual states. This necessitated a new software different from the earlier one, which was on dBase platform, because of the need for multiple criteria. The role of the EDP cell in SSC, which had no expertise or exposure to newer and versatile programming languages, was minimised and was limited to only results of intermediate stages of the examination. A separate LAN for result processing was created near the chamber of the Chairman to ensure total secrecy and need based access control. A senior Scientist of the NIC with excellent programming skills assisted in software development and its periodical modification for each examination. Problems were reported in results due to faulty data preparation and not due to the software as such. Possibilities of manipulation were totally eliminated as the result processing Cell processed the data given to it in an automated manner. Therefore, responsibility could be fixed for mistakes in data preparation in the regional office, data preparation in the EDP Section and result processing which was overseen by a highly qualified officer. Verification of initial stages of result processing was verified by a senior and well qualified officer and sometimes by me in the result processing room even while the result was actually being run. Result processing in CGL before introduction of the new software had considerable manual intervention because of different combination of papers for different groups of posts. A group of people would sit together and ‘allot’ candidates to different posts. With the new software all manual intervention except in data preparation was totally eliminated. Yet coding problems due to lack of verification led to problems in CGL 2012 results which in any case had to be rerun because of exclusion of a number of candidates for non interview posts in the data provided by the Northern Region. My absence from HQ for about a fortnight due to an illness which required hospitalization in Chennai was also responsible as the final results were thoroughly scrutinised by me and a senior officer independently and the result was usually cleared only if both of us found no problems with the results. I learnt to work in M S Access, at this age, to verify the results to supplement what was done by the senior officer of the SSC. Therefore, state-wise options and allotment brought about transparency in allotment as the result had the state wise options of the candidates and the cut off for each post, state wise. There were the positive spin offs of secrecy of results till it was placed on the website, normally on the same day of approval by the Chairman, and fixing of responsibility, besides helping the candidates to opt for only states of their choice. The ‘brilliant mind’ has said that state wise options will be sought by the departments after allotment of candidates to them. This means that there will be inevitable delay in allotment due to obtaining options, processing them and allotting to posts in different states. In a society like in our country which is known for its imperfections, transparency could be at a premium in allotment in a few departments. All departments, including the CBDT and CBEC, had welcomed the state wise allotment by the SSC. In our effort to ensure quick offer of appointment to the selected candidates we even took the responsibility of obtaining PVR forms at the time of interview/skill test, eliminating a possible delay of about three months in the departments writing to the candidates for the PVR forms and setting a time limit for obtaining them. A recruitment body is there to ensure provision of jobs to the meritorious candidates as quickly as possible, ensuring total objectivity and transparency. Unfortunately, the financial and other interests of thousands of unscrupulous elements are affected in the process. I understand that the Chairman, SSC follows my tweets and posts on FB. I would like to urge him to reconsider introduction of state options at the stage of interview, CPT or DEST, and Document verification of other candidates not called/ attending interview and skill tests. I reiterate that it is the responsibility of SSC to ensure transparency in state allotment too. Otherwise, the unscrupulous elements may wait for the objective process of SSC to be completed before they unleash themselves on the finally selected candidates. Taking advantage of anonymity of a closed group in FB, the’ brilliant mind’ has also alleged that I had caused preparation of easy question papers in Tier II of CGL 13. I appreciate the fertility of his imagination but he should use it in a constructive way as he actually appears to be doing in that closed group by guiding the candidates. It is a total lie. The Question papers prepared by the Experts would be seen by me and modified personally to improve the difficulty level, often by including one more stage of calculations but sometimes by changing the questions totally. This might not have been done the case of Question papers of Tier II, which actually was held about 6 months after I left the SSC.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 11:03:05 +0000
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