State exams to the non-secretariat clerk post are being conducted in Gujarat today, Sunday, April 24. Nearly 10.45 lakh candidates from all over the state are expected to write the paper. However, showing complete indifference to the 50,000-odd Rajkot examinees, the state administration has allocated centers at Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar. This means travelling 200 kilometer the night before the exam and a cost of Rs 1,000 for travel and related expenses.
Relying heavily on private buses, the scene at Ahmedabad bus terminal told it all. While some candidates were lucky to get a seat, others came clinging on to security holds.
Added, this exam is being conducted after a four-year gap. Candidates who registered in 2018 were left in the lurch because their exam in 2019 was annulled due to malpractices and paper leak. Then came the two year pandemic pause. This makes the exam a bottleneck clearance of sorts and hence, a greater number of candidates, which in turn narrows down the success rate.
Similarly, 51,000 examinees from Bhavnagar and Ahmedabad will appear in Rajkot. Breaking down the cost details, Premaben from Rajkot explained that getting expenses start from the time one takes an auto/rickshaw to the bus terminal. “We bring packed food but then tea and some refreshments along the way entail a cost. Once in Ahmedabad, we have to take conveyance to the exam centre. Then, lunch and the same costs back. At the end, we are down by roughly Rs 1,000. We are mostly unemployed and this is a huge expense for us,” she shared.
All that is needed for the government is sensitivity to the common man’s woes. Some of us gave up our aspirations for a government job because we could not afford the expense, added other students about their friends left behind.
For their part, the exam body states that the move was to prevent ‘paper leak’ on familiar turf. Since, candidates are not on familiar grounds, the chances of cheating and malpractices are minimized.
Also, the examination pattern has been altered to prevent any fraud. All the boxes of the paper will have a QR and be scanned at each stage. Invigilators will not be allowed to photo document details. Instead, information about where, at what time and where the paper was handed over to the officer will be recorded in the bar code.
The paper will be scanned when it reaches the strong room to ensure that the correct box has reached the right place. The papers of the absent candidates will have to be packed and tick-marked in the application function. This information will be available at the state level. For the first time, the presence of the candidate will be recorded online as well.
