SHILLONG, AUG 8: The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) on Thursday burnt the effigy of the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) as a mark of protest against the commission’s failure to disclose the marks of all candidates appearing for the MCS (Preliminary) Examination.
Speaking to reporters, KSU chief Lambokstarwell Marngar termed the alleged excuses made by the MPSC as an attempt to hide something.
“If there is really transparency in the functioning of the MPSC, then the question arises why there are frequent changes in the statements of the commission,” Marngar said.
He said the MPSC had issued a public notice on August 6, seeking the general consent of candidates of the MCS (Preliminary) Examination for disclosure of their marks in public domain.
Earlier to this, the MPSC had cited the inability to disclose the marks due to a petition filed by some candidates objecting to the demand to disclose their marks as it will be an infringement of their rights to privacy.
“We also fail to understand what kind of privacy they are talking about. When the majority of the MCS candidates have met the KSU and have expressed the need to ensure transparency in the recruitment by disclosing their marks, then why is the MPSC trying to hide the same?” he asked.
He said, “Surprisingly, the MPSC came up with another public notice in the guise of seeking the general consent of the candidates for disclosure of their marks in public domain. If there is really transparency, then why MPSC is hesitant or buying time to disclose the marks.”
Marngar said that the KSU on April 5, 2018 met the state government and had made it clear that recruitment done at the level of the MPSC and DSCs should be fully transparent.
“This is because the majority of the youth, who are government job aspirants, have expressed total lack of faith in the MPSC and DSC recruitment process as they alleged that the posts already have people before the advertisements were published or people are paying money to get appointments etc.”
The KSU chief said that the union will continue to protest till the MPSC is ready to comply with its demands to ensure transparency and end nepotism and favouritism in the recruitment by the commission.
“We don’t want the MPSC to be a place for collecting money or a place to please ministers, politicians or bureaucrats. We demand total transparency in the functioning of the MPSC as we cannot allow such a body to play with the future of job aspirants,” he said.
According to him, the actions by the MPSC by deciding to come up with an additional list of 62 candidates in the pretext of allegedly setting up of wrong questions give room for suspicion that there is total lack of transparency in the entire recruitment process.
“Otherwise, why should they hide (the marks) if there is transparency. Therefore, we highly demand that the recruitment be based on merits and not be based on somebody bribing somebody,” he stated.