Jharkhand Public Service Commission aspirants to stir against exam rules

RANCHI: Aspirants of the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) as well as members of 'Chhatra Jagran Manch', a students association, threatened to protest against the government's decision to fix 2013 as the cutoff year instead of 2007 for the age count in the fifth civil services examinations.
Manoj Kumar, the representative of the students' body, said the state government seems to be ruining the future of the students every time they conduct an examination."We want immediate approval of our demands failing which we will set the JPSC office on fire," said Kumar.
Kumar said since CBI inquiry is on against the first and second civil service examinations, deserving students could not utilize the first two chances. Students should be given more chances so that they can attempt to sit for the exams many more time.
The major demands are lowering the age limit for appearing in the exams for general candidates, not to restrict aspirants for appearing in the JPSC examinations once their chance gets over similar to what Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh follow, where there is no limit on the number of attempts one can take at the competitive examinations for state government services and fix 2007 as the cutoff year for appearing in the exam.
Members of the association on Saturday met MP Subodh Kant Sahay and urged him to help them in meeting the governor Syed Ahmed to put forth their grievances. After the formation of Jharkhand, the state personnel department has conducted JPSC examinations four times but every time it landed into controversy. In the first examination that was held in 2004 the cutoff age was 2003, in 2005 for the second exam held the cutoff age was 2004 while in 2006 and 2010 the cutoff age was 2005 and 2006 respectively.
However, in the fifth examination notification 2013 has been decided as the cutoff year instead of 2007 which will deprive many aspirants from taking the exam.
Considering the request of the students, chairman of JPSC Shiv Besant has written to the state personnel department for increasing the number of attempts and age required for appearing in the exams.
The Jharkhand Public Service Commission in its fifth civil services examinations will select candidates for more than 192 posts. This will include 91 posts for administrative officers. For the first time so many posts were meant to be filled up for the Jharkhand Administrative Service this year.