Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, Nov 17: The recruitment drive for appointment of Junior Engineers in the Electricity Department has fired up a major storm after several aspirants accused the Department of irregularities in the process. Many candidates, who either didn’t clear the written exams or lowly placed in the merit list, alleged that the Electricity Department granted favours to about 3-4 candidates by according age-relaxation in violation of the rules and claimed that the entire selection process was manipulated at various levels.
About 3-4 candidates engaged in the Electricity Department on contract basis were granted age-relaxation. One of them happens to be a relative of a higher official of the Department. Interestingly, these candidates are the ones who secured highest number of marks in the written test which clearly points towards certain wrongdoings in the recruitment process, said a candidate, who couldn’t make it to the merit list.
“Why did the Department not make it public that certain candidates in fray for the posts were granted age-relaxation. There are several candidates who could not apply for the vacancies because of over-age. But the Electricity Department never bothered to consider age-relaxation for such candidates. Such facts clearly testify the allegations of discrimination exercised in the recruitment process. Moreover, the Electricity Department preferred to evaluate the answer sheets in the conference room of the Power House instead of a place away from the officers and staff of the Department to prevent any malpractice. Besides just two persons of the Polytechnic College evaluating about 350 answer sheets in just 9 hours raises serious doubts over the credibility of the evaluation process,” claimed some others.
Speaking to Andaman Sheekha, the Superintendent Engineer of Electricity Department, Mr Uttam Kumar Paul, clarified that the age relaxation granted to 3-4 candidates was absolutely permissible under law as they were employed on contract basis in the Department. The evaluation process was also completely fair and transparent as the conference room was locked after the evaluators went inside for evaluating the papers, he maintained.
