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Andhra Pradesh scraps interviews for all recruitments to government departments
The decision was taken in an attempt to maintain utmost transparency and in order to ensure complete trust of the competing candidates in the entire selection process.
The Andhra Pradesh government has done away with interviews for all recruitments to be done through the state public service commission to fill up vacancies in various government departments. Orders to this effect were issued by chief secretary Adityanath Das on Saturday.
The state government recently announced that it would hire for 10,143 jobs during the year 2021-22. In the order, the chief secretary said the government had taken the decision to dispense with interviews for recruitments to be done by the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) for all categories of jobs, including for Group-I Services.
The decision was taken in an attempt to maintain utmost transparency and in order to ensure complete trust of the competing candidates in the entire selection process. “The order to dispense with interviews is applicable for all the recruitments notified on or after June 26,” the order said.
The chief secretary directed the secretary of APPSC to take necessary action in the implementation of the order.’
In 2011, the erstwhile combined Andhra Pradesh government abolished interviews for filling up of various posts, except for Group-1 services (deputy collector and revenue divisional officer posts etc) and for those posts which were executive in nature and where articulation and public interface was required.
After the bifurcation, the government for the residuary Andhra Pradesh in 2016 and 2017 re-introduced the interview system for filling up a few more top positions in the state government.
“However, at a review meeting conducted to introduce reforms in recruitment in October 2019, it was proposed to abolish interviews for recruitment of any posts notified by the APPSC,” the chief secretary said, adding that the government, after careful examination of the proposal, decided to implement it from now.
Andhra University professor S Prasanna Sree welcomed the decision of the state government to do away with interviews. “It will help candidates from rural backgrounds, who fail to get through interviews, despite doing extremely well in the written tests,” she said, adding that communication skills do not matter much if they have administrative skills.
Prasanna Sree also said abolition of interviews would also eradicate corruption in recruitments. “It will make the recruitments more transparent and merit-based,” she asserted.
