After facing major embarrassment following the paper leaks and alleged scam, the Maharashtra Government on Tuesday suspended the existing panel of vendor companies for conducting of recruitment examinations of various departments and undertakings and announced that forthcoming exams will now be held through the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd (MKCL), the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) and the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The government issued a resolution following the cabinet decision taken on December 15 in the wake of goof-up by the vendor companies in conducting recruitment examination leading to attack on the state government.
The general administration department under secretary Laxman Sawant in a government resolution said, ‘’The cabinet had decided to suspend the panel of vendor companies which were responsible to hold recruitment exams by optical mark recognition method. The cabinet took a decision in the wake of series of complaints against the OMR method applied by the panel of vendor companies and also following the starred questions and calling attention motions against the latter. The upcoming recruitment exams will now be conducted by the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Ltd (MKCL), the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) and the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).’’ He further added that the concerned departments in consultation with the general administration department will have to decide the method of conducting exams, conditions and norms for the same.
The general administration department will soon issue orders in this regard and it will be binding on the concerned departments to follow it while holding recruitment exams through MKCL, IBPS and TCS.
The government’s decision is important as in the wake of paper leaks in the recent recruitment examinations of the health department. In the Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) scam, the Pune police have made few arrests last year. The commissioner of Maharashtra State Council Of Examination (MSCE) and another person have been arrested for allegedly taking money to tamper with results of the TET held. The malpractices in the TET, held in January 2020, came to light during the probe of paper leak in the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) recruitment examination.
