Maharashtra Public (dis)Service Commission

 April 2013, near about three lakh people were waiting for this day. These three lakh mainly
includes Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) aspirant students, whose only
will was to enter in the civil services, along with them, their parents, friends and relatives were also willing for these students to
become C.E.O.; Dy.S.P., P.S.I., S.T.I, etc. Suddenly all these people were shocked
by the news – MPSC had lost all the data of the candidates who were going to
appear for the exam. Drama occurred further showed the working habits of the
As usual, this time again there will be neither exams nor the results are going
to be displayed on times as servers of the system having MPSC student’s data-base
is damaged, pointing out to the irresponsibility and reflecting the poor working of
the MPSC employees.
Chairman of the MPSC bears an experience of 30 years in the civil
services. He enrolls the candidates into the system. Still commission has not been
able to conduct the exam as per the schedule without avoiding blunders, Due to
which students and their parents pass through the heavy pressure and depression.
Students who resides in the city as well as in the rural parts of Maharashtra,
dreams to become an officer. Commission has no sympathy for them. A blunder
related with 7th April’s examination was quite insulting for the commission as
well as the government. Virus spoiled the server in which data of three lakh
applicant was stored. This incident happened just two weeks before the exam date
so it was impossible to issue admit-cards of the applicants. Commission didn’t say
a word about in public. When they came on the conclusion that server is not going
to be repaired, they asked all the applicants to give fresh information. Shocking
thing is when neither applicant got admit-cards nor system is working and
commission informed the Chief-Minister that conducting the exam on time is
possible. So, Chief-Minister also announces it in the assembly. Again within
couple of days government had to post-pone the examination. This was mistake of
the commission and the applicant had to face the consequences.
Yet another example of commission’s working habits. Information and
technology is touching new skies, on the other hand, commission is troubled by the
cyber viruses. Even common people while buying the computer installs the anti-
virus software. Most shameful thing is commission which is part of Government
couldn’t protect the data of three lakh applicants. ‘National Information System’
(NIC) is appointed for maintenance of the Government systems. Again its
surprising that a private company is maintaining the commission’s system. Why
the back-up of the data was was not taken? What was the reason behind fault in the
server? Neither commission nor the government answered these questions Public
service examinations are not easy to conduct as contains huge number of applicant.
It is related to the future of so many youngsters. These students work hard for the
examination. Playing with their efforts and emotions to hide the inefficiency of the
commission is absolutely not morally appropriate.
It is now high time that government should audit the commission’s working
habits. Otherwise people have already started losing faith in them. It will be
interesting to see what steps government takes in future to avoid such incidence.