SDE aspirants question PPSC’s move, say grace marks too high

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, October 27

Candidates who appeared in the Punjab Public Service Commission’s (PPSC) test conducted for the post of Sub Divisional Engineer (SDE) complained that 21 answer keys were incorrect out of 120 questions asked in the test.

On the perusal of the answer keys uploaded by the PPSC on its website, these candidates found anomalies. They claimed that the commission covered up this anomaly by giving 40 grace marks, which was earlier unheard of.

The PPSC had conducted the test for the posts of SDE, to be placed in departments such as Improvement Trust, PWD, Water Resources, Panchayati Raj, MCs, PUDA and others on June 15. The candidates from civil engineering background had to appear in the test.

There were 120 questions in the test of which 100 questions were from the technical field. The candidates said 21 answer keys were wrong and all of these belonged to the technical subject. They said the PPSC saved its face by giving 40 marks in grace to all students. However, they claimed that these marks were too high to have been given in any competitive examination. They said this move may defeat the very purpose of judging the right candidate for a job.

Karamjit Singh, Secretary Examinations of the PPSC, said: “Whatever may be the anomaly in the test conducted for the SDE, due procedure has been followed as per the PPSC norms.” He refused to elaborate the reasons for anomalies and granting of extremely high grace marks, citing his busy schedule.