The last-minute changes in the recruitment process for various posts in the centrally sponsored Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) have disqualified dozens of shortlisted candidates, who are planning to move to the court.
The changes in the whole requirement process apart from disqualifying thousands of candidates who were preparing for the exams from last two months raises many more questions such as – what was the need to cancel the requirement process?
In the Month of May 2018, vide notification no 6 dated 31.0518 applications were called for filling up of 128 positions in ICPS through a written test and the syllabus for the test was also notified online.
However recently soon after Mr GA Sofi assumed charge of Mission Director ICPS, notification No 6 of 2018 was cancelled upon unknown reasons. Mr Sofi further went ahead on publishing a fresh advertisement for filling up the posts in ICPS vide notification no 7 and 8 of 2018 dated 06.11.18 with profound changes in the criteria of eligibility and recruitment process.
The written test which was there in the earlier notification has also been scrapped in the new advertisement. “In pursuance to the decision taken in a meeting, the advertisement notice issued vide no 06 of 2018 on May 31, 2018, for filling of vacant positions in ICPS is hereby rescinded,” said managing director ICPS, G A Sofi in the cancellation notice on August 24.
With the change in education qualification eligibility, dozens of the shortlisted candidates have lost their chances to be appointed in the ICPS. The last date of submission of new applications is November 29. It will be the first of its kind when recruitment in the state government shall take place when the state is observing the Moral Code of Conduct as the Panchayat Elections are taking place.
A female candidate, Ifra, who applied vide notification no 6, said that she was getting a good Job opportunity in Delhi, but in the month of May when the first notification got published, she changed her mind and decided to stay. However now that the notification is called off and she is no more eligible for the post, Ifra says “she is completely broken as she lost both the opportunities.”
The earlier notification gave 85 per cent weightage for the written test, 10 per cent to academic merit, and 5 per cent to academic merit. No interview was to be conducted. Now the selection is just going to be on the basis on an interview as mentioned in the new notification.
Candidates have raised apprehensions that government is going to fill the vacancies under new advertisement notification through an interview which makes candidates apprehensive about their selection. Another candidate Raziya who is also an Anganwadi Worker says, with GA Sofi sitting in the chair of MD ICPS makes her doubtful about the just selection of candidates when the whole selection is based on an interview.