Assam: APSC conducts CCE (Preliminary) exam in 31 districts

GUWAHATI: The Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) on Sunday conducted the Combined Competitive (Preliminary) Examination in 132 venues across 31 centres/districts of the state in a peaceful manner and in adherence to law and order with the active participation of personnel from the administration of respective districts.

“While conducting the examination, utmost regard has been held towards maintaining fairness and integrity of the entire process,” the APSC secretary said in a statement issued here.

Thirty-one nodal officers, 132 supervisors, 388 assistant supervisors, 3861 invigilators, 570 clerks, 777 peons, 132 sub-inspectors, 792 police personnel and 264 nurses were engaged to ensure the smooth conduct of the examination.

The Combined Competitive (Preliminary) Examination consists of two OMR (objective type) question papers, namely General Studies (GS) Paper-I and General Studies (GS) Paper-II (qualifying paper) for a total of 400 marks.

Notably, the deputy commissioner of police (administration), Police Commissionerate, Guwahati had on Saturday issued prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC to ensure peaceful conduct of the APSC exam.

The order has been imposed to ensure that the exam was conducted in a free and transparent manner.

“There is every possibility of unscrupulous elements resorting to unfair means to disturb the process in and around the examination centres, which is likely to create obstruction, annoyance or injury to any person lawfully employed, or danger to human life, health or safety, or a disturbance of public tranquillity, or a riot, or an affray,” a notification issued by the Guwahati police commissionerate, said.

“As a result, it was deemed necessary to take preventive measures to ensure peaceful conduct of the examination at all the exam centres spread across all the three police districts of the Police Commissionerate, Guwahati,” the notification said.

Likewise, similar orders were issued by the districts to ensure the peaceful conduct of the exam.

Notably, this is for the first time in the history of the Assam Public Service Commission that such a large-scale recruitment process for 913 posts across 27 services was advertised under the umbrella of Combined Competitive Examination, 2022.

Altogether 74368 applications were received against 913 advertised posts, out of which 42320 are male candidates, 32045 are female and three are transgender candidates.

Besides, for the first time against the posts reserved for ex-servicemen, a total of 121 candidates applied. 

Furthermore, 20,162 candidates having post-graduation degrees and 258 candidates having PhD degrees, had applied for the posts.

Lauding the smooth conduct of the exam, APSC chairman Bharat Bhushan Dev Choudhury thanked all officials of civil and police administration, health department, postal department, Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL), Guwahati Municipal Corporation, principals and teachers of all educational institutions and all officers and staff involved in the examination process.

APSC holds Combined Competitive exams in two stages, as per the existing rules. The first stage, held to shortlist the candidates for the next stage is a preliminary examination.

In the first stage, the candidates have to appear for two papers.

The second stage of the examination is held in two stages- mains and interview. The main examination consists of eight papers for 250 marks. Out of the eight papers, papers 7 and 8 are optional subjects.

The Assam Cabinet had in December last year decided to eliminate the optional papers from the Combined Competitive (Mains) exam conducted by the APSC.

Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had, after the Cabinet meeting, said that the move would help in achieving “uniformity in the standards of evaluation” of descriptive answers and ensure “equitable treatment” to all candidates of CCE (Mains).

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