This is an archive article published on February 22, 2023

MPSC adamant on new exam pattern, govt seeks delay

Congress's Nana Patole was present at the site since Monday morning.

The MPSC announced the latest decision even before the meeting could take place. (Express Photo)

3 min readPuneFeb 22, 2023 07:24 AM IST First published on: Feb 22, 2023 at 05:17 AM IST

Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC), an autonomous body which conducts recruitment examinations for government posts in the state, is against delaying the implementation of the new UPSC-like exam pattern and is adamant to go ahead with the change as slated despite the state government advising it to delay the implementation of the new pattern till 2025 following students’ protests.

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis revealed this on Tuesday when he was in Pune to campaign for BJP candidates in the upcoming bypolls. A section of aspirants have been staging a sit-in protest at Jhansi Rani Laxmibai Square near Balgandharva since Monday morning.

“As we know, MPSC has been an autonomous body since the beginning. Very proactively the state government had requested that the new pattern should be effected from 2025. But the MPSC reverted saying that the suggestion was put before the full quorum of MPSC where it was decided that the new pattern must be implemented from the current year,” Fadnavis said.

Fadnavis said that when this was conveyed to the CM, he spoke to MPSC officials and conveyed to them that this was unacceptable as this might lead to a law and order situation. “Another letter has been sent to MPSC asking them to reconsider the decision. If they do not do that, then the state government will have to think of all the options including going to the courts, because we cannot disappoint the students who are our future. We will do what all that’s in our power,” said Fadnavis.

Meanwhile, the group of protesters who stayed at the protest site at Jhansi Rani Square overnight alleged that the police tried to make their stay inconvenient by turning off streetlights on Monday night. The protesters, who already enjoy the support of Congress, got another backing from Nationalist Congress Party with its leader Jayant Patil visiting the protest site on Monday.

Congress’s Nana Patole was present at the site since Monday morning.
Compared to the existing examination pattern, the new examination pattern is more descriptive in nature, having a total of nine papers, instead of six.

The exam will be held for a total of 1,750 marks instead of 800. As per the new pattern, marks obtained in two language papers of 300 marks each will no longer be included in the merit score. A candidate will have to score 25 per cent marks in each of these papers to qualify for the merit score.

There will be seven compulsory papers — one for essay writing, four on general studies and two papers on any topic selected by the candidate from the list of 26 optional subjects. All these papers will be descriptive in nature and will have 250 marks each. Marks obtained here will be considered for the merit score.