@the_news_21
Pune: A day after the Maharashtra government’s decision to postpone the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) exams attributing it to rising Covid-19 cases had triggered sharp protests from students and the opposition, the MPSC on Friday announced that the exam would now be held on March 21.
A circular issued by the MPSC further states that the hall tickets that had been earlier issued to students for the exam initially scheduled on March 14, would remain the same for the exam which is now to be held a week later. It mentioned that the exam centres previously scheduled would remain unchanged as well.
It also said that the MPSC’s Maharashtra State Engineering Services (MSES) pre- examination and the Maharashtra Subordinate Services’ (MSS) non-gazetted Group-B Combined Recruitment exam, scheduled respectively for March 27 and April 11 would be held as per schedule.
On Thursday, angry protests and dharna staged by harried aspirants were reported from across the State, especially in Pune and other cities following which prompted Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to hastily assure students that the commission would announce the fresh dates today.
The protests were compounded by the fact that the exams had been postponed at least four times in the past year, with the resultant uncertainty hanging like a pall over the students’ future.
While anxious students welcomed that the Chief Minister had kept his promise, several expressed concern about the arrangements in districts like Nagpur where a lockdown has been declared.
Others also said that the new schedule clashed with that of the Airport Authority of India (AAI) exam, also slated for March 21. This left aspirants to attempt only one of the exams, they said.
Nevertheless, the new MPSC exam schedule has accorded a measure of relief to harried students, most of whom hail from the State’s rural hinterland and are in financial straits.
Earlier, the MPSC’s decision to postpone the exams had evoked sharp criticism not only from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but also from within the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders, notably among the Congress party.
“While the government’s announcement to hold the exam on March 21 is most welcome, it must end all confusion by announcing a well-planned policy and a transparent process for all types of government recruitment. Furthermore, special travel arrangements must be made for candidates in districts currently under a lockdown,” said Maharashtra Pradesh Youth Congress (MPYC) President Satyajeet Tambe, who had earlier criticized his own government’s decision as a ‘mistake’.
Senior BJP leader Ashish Shelar on the other hand urged the Uddhav Thackeray government to immediately withdraw all cases that had been lodged against students during the course of their protests on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Pune police have lodged a case against BJP MLC Gopichand Padalkar who had joined the agitating students in the city’s Navi Peth area for flouting pandemic norms.
A case has been registered against Padalkar under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (Civil Disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant) at the Vishrambaug Wada police station. A defiant Padalkar had stubbornly refused to move from the protest site till late Thursday night, prompting the police to take him and his supporters into custody.
Speaking to reporters on Friday here, Padalkar remarked “the Uddhav Thackeray government is playing with the students’ emotions with their repeated postponements of the MPSC exams… they are not serious about this issue. The police had carried out a lathi charge to disperse agitated students yesterday. Even the Congress leaders are saying that the decision to postpone was ‘wrong’ and they were not taken into confidence.”
Padalkar warned that if the government attempted to postpone the exam one more time citing the pandemic as a pretext, he would demonstrate along with aggrieved students in front of the Chief Minister’s official residence ‘Varsha’ in Mumbai.
“The students who are waiting at their respective centres have no money to eat or stay. They are the sons and daughters of poor farmers. The government must give the really needy ones a stipend of Rs. 20,000 to compensate for its own ineptitude in repeatedly postponing the exams,” he said.
Earlier, the Chief Minister had said that the alarming case surge had compelled a majority of the administrative staff to be deployed in combating the renewed pandemic wave. Thackeray had stressed that rising cases had made it imperative to get the officials tested for Covid-19 before they were deployed for exam duties.
“We cannot play with the health of the students. So, it is vital to ensure whether or not these officials are negative. Students should not be in any doubt that whether officials in the room, who are handing out the question papers, are Covid-positive or not,” the Chief Minister had said yesterday while addressing the State.
