Chaos reigned during the online exam for recruitment to the posts of assistant engineer in Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) as the server crashed at one of the centres here on Sunday.
Angered by the turn of events, nearly 300 candidates staged a protest, some even resorting to damaging property at the City Engineering College centre.
Explaining the sequence of events, a candidate said the exam, which was to begin at 10 a.m., started 10 minutes late owing to a technical snag. “We all entered nearly 50 options when we realised that our answers were not being saved as once we pressed save and continued, a green light was supposed to appear. But only the red light appeared, which meant our answers were not saved,” he said.
Candidates were then asked to try answering last to first, but even this did not work. Despite being promised extra time to make up for the late start, the systems went off with 20 minutes to spare (before noon).
“Because of this, we could not ‘submit’ our answers, which effectively means we will be marked as absentees,” an upset candidate said. They also alleged that they were made to write the answers using the registration numbers of absent candidates.
Candidates also alleged that the exam delivery was shoddy despite them coughing up a hefty Rs. 4,000 for the exam, which was eventually reduced to Rs. 2,000 after a hue and cry.
“They took our account numbers to refund the excess amount, which we have not got yet,” a candidate said.
The exam was conducted in four cities for 8,414 candidates across 42 centres.
