A day after protests over the State government’s decision to postpone the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) exams due to rising COVID-19 cases, the commission on Friday announced March 21 as the new date.
An MPSC circular clarified that the exam centres and hall tickets issued for the March 14 exam would be valid for the new date.
It further said that the Maharashtra State Engineering Services pre-examination and the Maharashtra Subordinate Services’ non-gazetted Group-B combined recruitment exam, slated for March 27 and April 11, would proceed as scheduled.
On Thursday, angry protests and sit-ins staged by aspirants were witnessed across the State, especially in Pune and other cities prompting Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to hastily assure students that the commission would announce the fresh dates.
The protests were compounded by the fact that the exams had been postponed at least four times in the past year.
While anxious students welcomed the fact that the Chief Minister had kept his promise, several expressed concern over the arrangements in districts like Nagpur which is under a lockdown.
Others also said that the new schedule clashed with that of the Airport Authority of India (AAI) exam, also slated for the same day, leaving aspirants with a choice to attempt only one of the exams, they said.
Nevertheless, the new MPSC exam schedule has come as a relief to harried students, most of whom hail from the State’s rural hinterland and are in dire financial straits.
Earlier, the commission’s decision to postpone the exams had provoked sharp criticism not only from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but also from 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 Youth Congress 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 under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) [Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant] at the Vishrambaug Wada police station.
A defiant Mr. Padalkar had stubbornly refused to move from his protest spot till late Thursday night, prompting the police to take him and his supporters into custody.
Speaking to reporters today, he said: “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 anxious students yesterday. Even the Congress leaders are saying that the decision to postpone was ‘wrong’ and they were not taken into confidence.”
Mr. 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 ₹20,000 to compensate for its own ineptitude in repeatedly postponing the exams,” he said.
The Chief Minister had earlier said that the alarming case surge had compelled a majority of the administrative staff to be deployed in combating the renewed pandemic wave.
Mr. Thackeray had stressed that rising cases had made it imperative to get these officials tested 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 on Thursday.
