Bhubaneswar: The 21st National Conference of Chairpersons of State Public Service Commissions organised by the Odisha State Public Service Commission opened here Monday.
The chief guest state on the occasion, Governor Ganeshi Lal interacted with the delegates on duties and responsibilities of PSCs in conducting examinations and challenges in meeting constitutional needs.
Presiding over the conference, Arvind Saxena, Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), stated that PSCs always played a leading role with respect to recruitments without discrimination of caste, gender, religion, fear, favour, etc.
Saxena said, “The number of candidates appearing for each exam is increasing and due to that we often fail to give proper attention to them. So, the candidates sometimes fail to get a good exam venue or else… Hence, our focus is on more use of IT to make the entire process more candidate-friendly. We are also working on certain areas so that the exam stress of the candidates can be reduced.”
“We usually discuss technical, legal and statutory aspects and reach the common a solution that becomes a model guideline. Issues like how to digitalise the entire process to help candidates and how to handle the legal matters and strictly follow the guidelines of Supreme Court for such exams were discussed.”
He further advised candidates to appear for the UPSC and other State PSC exams only after full preparation as the commissions select ‘the best candidates’.
He further said that the chairpersons (during the conference) mostly discussed digital evaluation and the focus of the commissions will be on shifting the ‘pen and paper’ mode of examination to a computer-based mode. “Digitalisation will help the candidates know their performance and marks secured for each answer,” Patnaik added.
Ghanta Chakrapani, chairman, Telangana State Public Service Commission, and chairman of the Standing Committee on the national-level conference, gave a briefing on how technology has made it transparent to deal with the service and administrative matter of PSCs.
Similarly, Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) chief Brigadier (Retd) Laxmi Charan Patnaik said that a standard operating system will be followed so that the examinations can be conducted smoothly.