Bhubaneswar: Following allegations of corruption in Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC) recruitment process, complaints of anomalies have now been levelled against the grading procedure of answer sheets in the Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) Examination.
Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) candidate Rajat Kumar Mishra from Dhamnagar in Bhadrak district took the OAS exam in 2015 but did not make it to the final merit list despite performing well in the mains and interview.
Rajat said that he afterwards filed an application before the Commission to obtain a copy of his answer sheet to figure out what went wrong. He received a delayed response after a year in 2016 but he was more surprised to learn that the mark he received on the sheet (117) was later changed to 50 without explanation.
Rajat claimed that when he knocked on the doors of the OPSC to learn the truth about the reduction in his grades, he received no response.
“The examiner had awarded 117 in the answer sheet but the score was later changed to 50. Though everyone is admitting that there was a mistake in the evaluation, I could not get justice. However, the concerned authorities said that the marks awarded to me earlier were also not enough to crack the examination,” Rajat said.
After a thorough analysis, Rajat found out that one of the candidates who passed the exam in 2017 did not appear in any of the papers, whereas his name appeared on the merit list.
The candidate and the authorities involved are unable to provide a precise explanation for the blunder.
Rajat further alleged, “In 2018, I had appeared the prelim examinations and found that the question paper and the answer key both were wrong. I could not clear the exam by 0.5 marks due to the mistake committed by the OPSC. I came to know about it in 2019 following the announcement of the results,”
OPSC is already facing criticism from Odisha Civil Services (OCS) because the Prelim Exam-2020 dates this year coincide with numerous other state and national-level examinations, including the UPSC viva-voce in New Delhi.
Though the UPSC had scheduled the short-listed applicants’ interviews in advance from August 2 to September 22, the OPSC has set the prelims for August 27, as stated lately by the Commission.
In addition, the Combined Graduate Level (CGL) and Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE) exams will be held August 24 and August 29, respectively, and the Revenue Inspector (RI) test will be held August 29.