During the protest over errors in HPSC examination at HPSC office in Sector 4, Panchkula, on Monday. (Express photo by Suresh)Written by Jaspreet Singh
A LARGE number of youngsters, who had taken the Haryana Civil Services (Executive Branch) preliminary exam, protested outside the Haryana Public Service Commission office at Sector 4 on Monday, raising concerns over the ‘errors’ in the examination papers.
Shweta Dhull, a protester, alleged that 11 questions were deleted from the recent examination. Moreover, eight questions have two different answers, nine questions were wrong in the revised answer and 15 questions were from outside the syllabus. “We have gathered here to demand justice and transparency from the authorities. The government must take credible action. It is our dream job and the HCS paper comes after every five years,” she said. “Fifteen questions were taken from Barron’s GRE book of 2008, which is a copyright issue. Similarly, 28 questions of mathematics and nine questions of reasoning have been copied and put in the paper from NABARD 2008 question paper. We want strict action against the examiner who set the paper,” alleged another protester, Wazir Singh.
Shweta Dhull has filed a case in the Punjab and Haryana high court regarding the matter. She, along with Monika Sharma, has also given a memorandum to the deputy secretary, HPSC, Pradyumn Singh.
Candidates, protesting outside the commission office, pointed out that the officials have accepted two varying answers as correct for the length of the Indian coastline. They also alleged that the questions did not have a Hindi translation, thereby, discriminating against the Hindi medium candidates. They demanded that 15 such questions be declared null and void, and alleged that Naib Tehsildar exam papers were not cancelled, despite rumours that they were leaked.
The protesters complained of high cutoffs and also accused the HPSC of not providing carbon-copies of the OMR sheets. They also alleged that there was a lack of safeguard measures including biometric scanning, use of permanent ink for thumb impression and fixed CCTV cameras, among others.
