MPSC needs complete change over
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 30 , 2014 -

Incompetency breeds arrogance.

This is exactly what is happening with Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC).

Wrong or erroneous questions/answer keys in as many as 15 questions of the Manipur Civil Services (Prelim) Exam 2014, allotment of grace marks for the wrong answer keys and declaration of the exam results in two phases sum up clumsiness of MPSC.

The Joint Students Coordination Committee (JSCC) has already demanded MPSC to put on hold the process of conducting the main exam.

Now JSCC has been joined by ATSUM.

The two student bodies are asking the Government to abrogate the preliminary exam and conduct the same exam anew.

Declaration of results of any competitive exam in phase-wise manner is something unheard of. The commission is rotten to the core.

Change of guard is the need of the hour. A thorough, impartial and speedy enquiry should be instituted at once.

Responsibility should be fixed and the guilty punished. MPSC and the whole State of Manipur need sincere, competent and efficient officers for conducting civil services examinations.

MPSC should not be a place of minting big and easy money.

The present set of officers manning MPSC has no sense of accountability or responsibility otherwise they would have come up with some explanation.

Perhaps the MPSC authority has no convincing explanation. If this is the case, they have committed some serious misdeeds which could not be vindicated by any argument.

Selection of civil services officers through unfair means implies creating a generation of corrupted bureaucracy. By analogy, these corrupted bureaucrats can never be expected to discharge their duties sincerely.

Graft practices and other forms of wrongdoings should have no place in MPSC and its functions but all the controversies surrounding the commission project a totally different picture which is not at all in the interest of Manipur.

Manipulation of the exam processes and all types of unethical practices seem to be the hallmark of MPSC. That is why many sections have been demanding a thorough enquiry.

If MPSC is guilty, the State Government has no moral right to claim innocence.

MPSC’s top rung leaders are selected through political appointments and everybody is aware of the unholy nexus between bureaucrats and political leaders.

The Government, if it is not involved in the mess seen in MPSC, should intervene and the intervention should have been done much earlier.

But so far, the Government does not see a case fit for intervention. The nexus between bureaucrats and political leaders is always a two-way affair.

Bureaucrats influence political leaders and vice versa.

Both the MPSC authority and the Government seem to have adopted a treacherous principle which says any act of thievery is not thievery until it is detected.

As manifested in their rigid stance to abort the ongoing civil services exam, JSCC and ATSUM have sensed certain wrongdoings.

It is the responsibility of the Government to find out the wrongdoings and take up corrective measures as a matter of urgency.

If the Government does not understand what its responsibilities, functions and duties are, the citizens must point out what it should do, when and how.

If the Government still refuses to act, it is up to the citizens, civil society organisations and student bodies to correct the wrongdoings.

Even if MPSC is not totally at fault, it is clear that a grave injustice has been done to a sizeable number of candidates who appeared in the prelim exam.

The issue is a serious one for future bureaucrats are selected through civil services exams and the entire administrative machinery are controlled by bureaucrats.

The cause taken up by JSCC and ATSUM deserves attention and support of the civil society. The process of holding the main exam must not be allowed to proceed.

Citizens should not take the risk of placing themselves at the mercy of corrupted bureaucracy and their equally corrupted political masters.

The rot must be stopped immediately before it turns malignant.