APSC stinks under Gogoi's watch

TL Baruah committee’s recommendations to clean up APSC ignored for 14 years

SOME RECOMMENDATIONS

*    The State government should take care to see that the Public Service Commission is manned by competent, honest and independent persons of outstanding ability and high reputation who command confidence of the people and who would not allow themselves to be deflected by an extraneous consideration from discharging their duty of making selections on merit.

*    The Secretary should undergo training at the UPSC to acquaint himself with the method of work in a constitutiol body like the Public Service Commission.

*    The Commission should prepare a detailed office-manual like the Office Manual of the Rajasthan Public Service Commission for guidance of its staff in disposal of their works.

*    The Combined Competitive Examition, 1998-99 was mismaged. The list recommended by the Commission suffers from favouritism, bias, manipulation and violation of established rules and procedures.

*    The Chairman/members/Secretary/Controller of Examition should, before the commencement of the process of examition, disclose if any of their relatives are appearing in the examition and disassociate themselves from doing any confidential work relating to the examition.

*    The Commission should give proper weightage to academic achievement of the candidate, his past experience and professiol attainment while allocating marks in the interview.

*    Delay in sending recommendation to government after completion of interview leaves scope for manipulation and should be avoided.

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, May 22: In 2001 when Tarun Gogoi came to power in the State, he promised that all measures would be taken to clean up the ‘mess’ in the Assam Public Sevice Commission (APSC) and reform the same. To initiate the reform process, a committee under the chairmanship of TL Baruah was constituted by the Chief Minister, which later submitted several recommendations on the issue.

It may be mentioned that almost every year, the APSC gets embroiled in result-related controversies and other issues. But in the last 14 years, most recommendations of the TL Baruah Committee remain on paper.

One of the major recommendations of the TL Baruah Committee was that to select the chairman and other members of the APSC, a committee should be constituted with the Chief Minister, the Assembly Speaker and the leader of Opposition as its members. But the Gogoi government didn’t accept this recommendation of the Committee, which would have brought transparency in selecting the APSC chairman and other members.

Sources allege that Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi threw out this key recommendation because he wanted to keep the power to appoint the APSC chairman and members solely in his hands.

Despite being an autonomous body, examition related controversies have been dogging the APSC for the last several years. This time too, allegations of result related anomalies have been leveled against the APSC but instead of taking this issue seriously, Gogoi, it seems, is more intent to cover up its misdeeds. He even said nobody has come to him with complaints against the APSC.

Interestingly, despite the objection raised by the department concerned to the appointment of the present chairman of the APSC, Chief Minister Gogoi allegedly appointed him by over-ruling all objections.

Sources further allege that the State government hasn’t shown any sincerity in implementing the recommendations of the TL Baruah Committee. “If the recommendations of the Committee were implemented, the APSC could have emerged as an efficient body,” sources said, adding, “In the result related controversy in the APSC, a section of officials of the Commission is involved. The time has come to reform the APSC, which has so far been overlooked.”