The Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) on Monday recommended the State Government to do away with the optional subjects in the preliminary examinations in future.
The recommendation came on the heels of scrapping the APPSCC Preliminary Examination conducted on November 26 last, after it was surrounded by controversies.
In a press release, APPSC secretary, Onit Panyang stated, as per the proposal of the Commission, the preliminary examination shall consist of two papers – General Studies and Aptitude Test – carrying 200 marks each.
“The aptitude test will be of qualifying nature and admission of candidates to the Mains examination will be determined on the basis of their performance in the General Studies paper,” Panyang stated in the release.
The Commission had to scrap the APPSCCE preliminary examination after controversies surfaced claiming the optional paper had been copied from a Pakistan-based web link and various other sources from outside the syllabus.
The Peoples’ Party of Arunachal (PPA) has urged the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) to adopt the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) pattern of conducting the civil services examinations.
The APPSC recently decided to re-conduct this year’s APPSCCE preliminary examination because of controversy arising out of various anomalies detected in the question papers of the optional subject.
In a press release, the PPA on Monday suggested that the APPSC begin by ‘doing away with the outdated system of conducting the preliminary examination, where the candidates appear with different optional subjects’.
Instead, it said, the UPSC pattern of a civil services aptitude test and a General Studies paper should be made mandatory for all the candidates, irrespective of their academic backgrounds, from the next examination itself.
The PPA also called for ‘immediate action’ against the firm/agency that had been entrusted with the task of preparing the question papers.
“Appropriate action should also be initiated against those who were involved in entrusting the task to a firm that has been found to be totally incompetent and unprofessional,” it said.