Ranchi: Keeping his poll promise made during the assembly polls, chief minister Hemant Soren in a tweet on Saturday said his government has reduced the application fees of the state civil service examinations. “I am committed to every promise that we made to our people during the election,” Soren said on his official Twitter account.
According to the notification of the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC), the application fee for the general category has now been reduced by Rs 500 and it now stands at Rs 100 and while it has been reduced to Rs 50 for the reserved category. Earlier, those in the reserved category had to pay Rs 150. “Application forms will be out on February 15 on the JPSC website,” a JPSC official said.
Earlier this week, JPSC had announced to hold the four civil services examinations — pending since 2017 — together this year to fill 252 posts across administrative and police cadres. The preliminary examination will be held on May 2 and the Main is tentatively scheduled for August, the dates of which will be announced later.
Civil service aspirants welcomed the decision and Rakesh Murmu, a civil service aspirant, said it was long overdue since the majority of the candidates will be from a humble background and they had been demanding a reduction in application fees for a long time. “This is a piece of good news for all of us today,” said Murmu, who is planning to appear for the exams in other states as well. He said, “I have not decided yet but I am planning to appear in the examinations of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.”
Another applicant, Mukesh Kumar, rued the less number of vacancies announced even with four years of pending exams being clubbed together. “With four exams being held together, I thought that there will be bumper vacancies but the government has only floated recruitments for 252 posts. We urge the government to increase the number of vacancies,” he said.
Meanwhile, opposition BJP did not seem impressed with the decision. BJP legislative party leader and Dhanwar MLA Babulal Marandi said, “There is more to this than meets the eye. This government first hiked the fees and now reduced it to earn applause, indicating a fake concern for the youth. Similarly, it put the fate of lakhs of job aspirants in uncertainty by cancelling past exams and scrapping the 2016 state recruitment policy. The government has not uttered a single word on what will happen to them. The ruling dispensation is keeping mum on a host of other issues that directly concern the jobless in Jharkhand.”