Thy name is controversy : MPSC and civil services exam
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 22 , 2014 -

Manipur Public Service Commission or MPSC in short has again landed itself in yet another controversy. Something is seriously wrong within MPSC.

Utter inefficacy, callousness, arrogance and deceit have become the defining words for the commission. Every time MPSC conducts civil services exams, it unfailingly hit the newspaper headlines for all the wrong reasons.

This time there were no less than 15 erroneous questions/answer keys.

As if it was not enough, result of the Manipur Civil Services Examination 2014 (Prelim) was declared in three phases between May 13 and 16.

Already the Joint Students’ Coordination Committee has raised a banner of revolt against the dubious nature of conducting the exam. JSCC’s demand to put on hold the main exam process is exactly what is demanded by the unfolding situation.

Sheer arrogance and irresponsibility are what is manifested by the MPSC Chairman and the Secretary in leaving their stations and locking their office rooms at such critical time.

The top officers of MPSC seem to have forgotten their duties, responsibilities and functions of MPSC.

Combined competitive civil services examination, as the name suggests, is not any ordinary recruitment exam.

It is one of the most alluring yet challenging recruitment. The whole administrative machinery hinges on these exams.

Socio-political and economic well being of a State depends much on how the civil services exams are conducted.

Those who get selected through the competitive civil services exams ultimately take the helm of a State’s administrative machinery and rise to the upper echelon of the bureaucracy.

In another word, these exams are the fountainhead of a State’s bureaucracy. The baseline of all competitive exams, civil services or otherwise is to select the best brains from amongst the smartest candidates.

Herein lies the momentous responsibility of the Manipur Public Service Commission.

Interestingly it is the bureaucrats who are running the Manipur Public Service Commission entrusted with the crucial task of selecting civil service officers or you may call them future bureaucrats.

It would be a tragedy for Manipur and its future if MPSC has been selecting future bureaucrats not on merit but after weighing weights of booties offered.

Bribery, nepotism or favouritism should not find even a foothold in such exams otherwise it would be a misnomer to call it a competitive exam.

Let the candidates contest and outwit each other on a balanced ground.

This is the ideal situation for a competitive exam but what is happening in Manipur and with MPSC is far from being ideal if all the complaints, errors, controversies and anomalies are any indication.

Bureaucracy bred through competitive civil services exams has enormous power. Bureaucrats have the capacity to shape and determine policy orientation of their political masters.

It is a matter of fact that a state’s administrative policies are always under the influence of its bureaucracy.

Again, it is the bureaucracy who determines how well the State’s administrative policies, projects and schemes are implemented.

To put it in a nutshell, bureaucracy is one major factor which determines the State’s overall welfare or prosperity or failures.

Logic says corrupt officers will breed only corrupt officers and there is hardly any convincing argument which can defy or negate this logic. The present imbroglio needs immediate intervention of the highest authority.

Rather than going ahead with the process of holding the main exam, the preliminary exam and its result should be scrapped totally.

A fresh exam should be held in its place and in the meantime a thorough, impartial and speedy investigation should be conducted.

If any wrongdoing or fraudulence is detected, there should be no room for sympathy or leniency towards the guilty.

It is really disturbing to hear that civil services examinations conducted by MPSC are cakewalk for some candidates whereas to many others they are one hurdle which is impossible to cross howsoever bright and qualified they may be.

We fear the bureaucrats at MPSC and their political masters are hand in gloves. In that case, it is up to the student community and the civil society to fight and exorcise MPSC’s dubious character and utter incompetency.