Shield against prejudice

The commission has suggested that there should be no separate list of reserved candidates called to interviews.

Published on: May 26, 2006, 03:06:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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If the Planning Commission has its way, the reserved category students appearing for interviews in civil service examinations will not have to worry about caste prejudices scuttling their chances during interviews.

The commission has suggested that there should be no separate list of reserved candidates called to interviews nor should the interviewer have any inkling about the caste of the interviewee. Rather, the commission favours a unique roll number for the SC/ST and OBC candidates to prevent any discrimination.

In a note sent to the Prime Minister's Office, the commission has suggested that each reserved category candidate be given a special roll number which will identify their castes to the examining authority but not to any interviewer. Such a system is already in place in Uttar Pradesh.

The commission has suggested that a similar system can be introduced by the Union Public Service Commission, which conducts a large number of examinations for jobs in the central government and some state governments, including the prestigious civil service examinations.

Lakhs of students appear for UPSC examinations every year. Though a high number from the reserved categories take the exams only a few thousand clear them.

Sources say, the Planning Commission’s suggestion is part of its endeavour to bring in more efficiency and transparency in functioning of government organisations. The commission has been suggesting various functional changes in different government organisations to improve governance.

It had earlier suggested opening up the education sector to expand the reach of higher education to remote parts of the country. The panel asked HRD ministry to ensure that 10 per cent of the funds for higher education are utilised for betterment of backward and deprived classes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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