Make CSAT qualifying exam: Activists

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 23

Punjabi writers and Punjabi language activists on Monday demanded that Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) should be treated as the only qualifying in nature in various Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) recruitment examinations instead of a competitive paper.

With an aim to check general knowledge as well as aptitude skills of the candidates, the UPSC had introduced CSAT (GS II) in 2011. This paper mainly covered quantitative ability, verbal ability and reading comprehension, reasoning and data interpretation.

However, after nationwide protest by Civil Services aspirants, calling the examination as discriminatory against the candidates coming from regional languages and humanities, the government made CSAT just a qualifying in nature in 2015.

Subsequently, various state public service commissions had also changed the nature of examination from competitive to qualifying. However, in Punjab it continued to be the competitive examination. Following that Kendri Punjabi Lekhak Sabha and Punjabi Akademi, Ludhiana, have demanded that since UPSC and various other treat CSAT as just qualifying examination, the Punjab Public Service Commission should also follow the suit.

In a statement issued by Sushil Dosanjh, General Secretary of the Kendri Punjabi Lekhak Sabha, and other writers said since 2014, UPSC has made CSAT as qualifying examination in which a candidate has to score just 33 per cent marks and marks scored in this examination are not counted to prepare the merit.

He added that several states, including Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, had also changed CSAT into a qualifying examination. However, in Punjab it continues to be a competitive examination. The writers said, “Candidates writing their examination in Punjabi and with rural background are at the receiving end.” They alleged that the state government was giving preference to English over Punjabi.