To press for their demands, MPSC aspirants take to the streets, silently

The marches are scheduled to take place across 15 districts, in several cities such as Nashik, Baramati, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Nanded and Latur, among others. The marches in Nashik and Aurangabad, held on January 31 and February 6, respectively, have received a tremendous response from competitive exam aspirants, said the organisers. The march in Pune, scheduled to be held on February 8, will start from Shaniwar Wada and end at the office of the district collector, they said.

To attract more participants for the march, students have started a Facebook page — ‘MPSC Students Rights’ — which has garnered almost 14,000 likes. They have also started a ‘Telegram’ Channel — a messenger app popular among competitive exam aspirants — which also has thousands of members. One of the main demands of the students is to increase the number of seats advertised each year and to fill the vacancies in various government departments.

One of the organisers of the march, Rajesh More, said, “Until recently, the state government used to advertise for nearly 300-350 vacancies each year, but this year, they have drastically reduced the number of seats. They have given advertisements for just 69 vacancies, in spite of a large number of vacant government positions. The number of students who have applied for the exams is around seven lakh. So if one considers the ratio of applicants to the number of seats… it seems to be a mockery of the students studying for the exams.”

The organisers are also demanding that the investigation into the state-wide dummy candidate racket be handed over to the CBI, and biometric attendance system and mobile jammers be introduced during exams to keep a check on possible malpractices. Sachin Salunkhe, another organiser, said the state government needed to follow the ‘Tamil Nadu’ model to conduct the exams, “In Tamil Nadu, the whole timetable for the exam — from the preliminary exam till the joining date of the candidate — is advertised six months in advance, and it is thoroughly followed, which is not the case here,” he said.