Lack of credible info on Telangana, a bane for Group II aspirants

There is ambiguity in several questions of the examination

Lack of authentic sources on Telangana history and the Telangana movements for separate statehood have led to ambiguity in several questions of the Group-II exam conducted last November, and now caught in legal wrangles for various reasons.

Though the High Court has stayed the process of Group-II recruitment for other reasons, candidates had lots of complaints on the ambiguous answers given for various questions.

The expert committees that looked into the complaints too found ambiguous answers but had to settle for the nearest one. But still they could be challenged legally as different books had varied answers, an official agreed. For example, there was a question on when did the BJP officially decide to support separate Telangana but books written by various authors had different answers on it with their own interpretation. “Such questions have scope for litigation,” a senior officer agreed. Another question was on Dr. C. Narayana Reddy’s Padma award. While he got Padma Bhushan, some official websites of the government contained information that he was awarded Padma Vibhushan.

“Both the choices were given in the answer and some candidates went by the government websites choosing Padma Vibhushan.” There were several such questions that are being challenged due to lack of authentic resources, a senior official agreed. The TSPSC is getting flak for the double bubbling on the OMR sheets as applicants blame it for the fiasco during the examination. But the TSPSC officials, seeking anonymity, said that the arrangements in the districts and remote centres were made by the concerned district administration.

Since around 5 lakh candidates appeared for the exam, authorities found difficulty in getting the exam centres and preparing the invigilators. At several remote centres, they got confused with the matching of question paper code and OMR sheet code.

Initially after supplying the OMR sheets as per norms, they changed it under the impression that both the codes of OMR sheet and question paper had to match. This led to re-arranging of papers but by that time several candidates bubbled their details on OMR sheet. It was necessary to rearrange the sheets as the details of OMR sheets and question paper given first were already entered with the students name in the nominal roles, which were crucial in the exam and evaluation process. This led to confusion among candidates. “Nearly 10% of candidates out of the 5.17 lakh candidates who took the exam had faced this problem,” an official explained.

Digital valuation

On the issue of some candidates figuring in the list selected for the interviews, the officials clarify that they don’t know if any double bubbling candidate has qualified as they have not verified the names personally but only digital files were checked. The scanner itself recognises the double bubbling and rejects and there is no manual involvement.