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Journalism of Courage
Several candidates have hit the road as well as are protesting online across the country demanding a rollback of Staff Selection Commission (SSC)’s Combined Graduate Level (CGL) 2023 notifications. Job aspirants claim that the SSC’s changed eligibility criteria has left thousands of CGL aspirants ineligible to apply for the exam.
What are the revised SSC CGL eligibility criteria?
As per SSC CGL 2023 notification, the minimum and maximum age requirement for applying to the exam is 18 and 32 years respectively. This age eligibility will be calculated as on August 1, 2023.
Why are aspirants protesting?
As per the previous years’ notifications of SSC CGL, the commission used to consider January 1 of the notification year as age reckoning. Candidates waiting to appear for SSC CGL 2023 were expecting the age limit to be set to January 1, 2023. As a result of the August age limit, a number of candidates lose out on an attempt, and many have also lost out on their final attempt.
Aditya Singla, a protesting candidate told indianexpress.com that due to this changed age criteria, he has lost his last attempt of appearing in the exam.
“I turned 32 on March 21 this year. With SSC’s new eligibility guidelines, I am ineligible for appearing in the exam. However, if they had followed the same pattern as last year which is January 1, I would have been eligible to appear for the SSC CGL exam. This sudden change has been introduced without any prior intimation. I have been preparing for this recruitment test for the last four years and this new decision has put a full stop to my career,” Singla said who has attempted the CGL thrice.
Many took to Twitter to share their issue, requesting the government to roll back the decision
How does SSC decide on the age limit?
As per the Office Memorandum 1988 of DOPT (Department of Personnel Training), they consider the year in two halves. One from January to June and the other from July to December. The half of the year within which the second part of the exam (Tier II) is conducted should also have the age limit date.
As per this rule, SSCs current decision stands valid as the SSC CGL 2023 Tier 1 exam will be held between July 14 to July 17 and the Tier II exam will only be conducted later in the year. Hence, the August 1 eligibility criteria hold. However, SSC has set the age limit date as January 1 before, even though the exams were in the second half. This has resulted in aspirants protesting to continue the ongoing eligibility pattern.
