PPSC making mega bucks with hefty exam fee

Balwant Garg amp; Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Faridkot/Patiala, March 24

While various government boards and corporations are under debt, the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) is proving to be a money-minting machine for the state government.

From April 1, 2020, to January 31, 2021, the commission collected over Rs 32.60 crore as examination and registration fee for various recruitment drives. The total expenditure incurred by the commission on conducting these exams was only Rs 8.91 crore. The PPSC deposited around Rs 24 crore "profit" with the state treasury a few days ago.

In a letter to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh in January, PPSC Chairman Lt Gen Surinder Singh (retd) had demanded fee reduction for various categories, including women, economically weaker sections and persons with disabilities. He also appended a comparative list of money charged by the Union Public Service Commission and other state public service commissions for various recruitment exams.

Except SC/ST and OBC categories, all other categories are being charged Rs 3,000 per exam in Punjab. This included persons from economically weaker sections, those with disabilities, sportsperson and descendants of ex-servicemen.

The letter pointed out while Punjab charges Rs 3,000 for an exam from every general category candidate, the UPSC charges only Rs 200 for the same. Meghalaya and Gujarat charge Rs 100, Uttar Pradesh Rs 125, Rajasthan Rs 350, Haryana Rs 1,000 and Himachal Pradesh Rs 1,500.

In an advertisement for 124 posts of SDO in nine departments, the Punjab authorities put a condition that every candidate should apply separately for each department. In other words, a candidate applying for all nine departments ended up paying Rs 27,000 in all.

The PPSC Chairman confirmed to The Tribune that he had taken up the issue with the government. He had recommended a reduction in fee for all genuine categories, he said.

from The Tribune https://ift.tt/3ch3WJ9