A generation in waiting: Uttar Pradesh’s govt. job aspirants are losing their prime years in waiting
Rishabh Tripathi (name changed to protect privacy), 27, is worried. He lives in an 80-square-foot rented room in a double-storey house in Ayodhya town, its
Rishabh Tripathi (name changed to protect privacy), 27, is worried. He lives in an 80-square-foot rented room in a double-storey house in Ayodhya town, its walls chipped, the floor cracked, the roof leaking. He is contemplating his next steps. Tripathi, an ambitious State-level 10m air pistol shooter, feels his dreams are dying a slow death. He has just been on the website of the Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Service Selection Commission (UPSSSC), and is disappointed. Again. “Every day I check the website twice. It has been two months now. The final results of the Village Panchayat Officer (VPO, or Gram Panchayat Adhikari) post have still not been posted. I have been trying for a government job, but the prolonged delay in conducting the examination is adversely impacting my life, my dreams,” says a frustrated Tripathi. The son of a street vendor, who owns less than an acre of farmland, Tripathi has two dreams: to help the family in his elder sister’s marriage and to take a loan for sports equipment and academy fees. “I dream of representing India in the 2028 Olympics. If the final result of the VPO is declared, I can take the loan. Shooting is an expensive sport; my family can’t afford it,” he says. Now, he makes ends meet by tutoring children in Ayodhya, managing to earn ₹4,000 a month. Tripathi is among millions of young government job aspirants in Uttar Pradesh, most of who hope for the stability of an income and upward social mobility. Many have a similar grievance: that the recruitment commission entrusted to conduct the examinations routinely delays the process, wasting young aspirants’ prime years. They allege irregularities in the process. In the past, there have been Preliminary Eligibility Test (PET) paper leaks, besides those of other exams. Waiting for Godot The VPO is a Group C post, an administrative role to facilitate the implementation of government schemes, among other work. The UPSSSC is authorised to recruit group C and D posts whenever the State Government puts out a notification for hiring. On May 16, 2023, up to 1,468 VPO posts were notified. Roughly 40 times the number of candidates were shortlisted, based on their PET scores. The PET is a State-level qualifying exam managed by the UPSSSC. It features a 100-question, 100-mark, two-hour written test, with one-fourth negative marking. Tripathi has a BSc degree from Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University. He is upset that the commission has also not processed the results of a Junior Assistant post, another job he had applied for.
“I sat for the exam in June last year, the results were declared in October. The typing test was done in November and December, and the results were declared in February this year,” he says, adding that even his documents were verified in May. “But the final result is pending. This was for a job notified on August 4, 2023. These delays are frustrating, not just for me but also for other people my age. Our youth is getting wasted,” Tripathi adds. A deep-rooted crisis Pankaj Pandey, convener of the Sanyukt Pratiyogi Chhatra Hunkar Manch, a Prayagraj-based outfit of competitive exam aspirants that holds its meetings in a field on the banks of the Ganga. For the last two months, he has been demanding a fair investigation into alleged irregularities in the Lekhpal examination conducted by the UPSSSC. “There are multiple videos circulating on social media platforms of organised cheating in the Lekhpal Mains examination [conducted on May 21 across 861 centres in 44 districts]. We demanded that the Uttar Pradesh government appoint a high-level Special Investigation Team to probe the allegations, but this has not been accepted,” says Pandey, a government job aspirant. The government says that the allegations of paper leak are false. According to an official statement, the exam was “fair, uninterrupted and peaceful”, conducted “with full transparency”. Once the government got the news of a paper leak, “competent authorities immediately verified it, and the information was found to be completely misleading and false”. There were 7,994 posts, for which 3,01,756 sat for the exam, which means 37.75 people appeared for each post. The aspirants are not satisfied. “We organised a protest march in Prayagraj, and held demonstrations for days outside the UPSSSC office. We submitted petitions to all concerned stakeholders,” says Deepak Patel, a 24-year-old from Sherpur in Ghazipur district. He adds that most recruitment takes years to complete the process. “Comprehensive reforms in recruitment boards are the need of the hour to assuage the anxiety of aspirants,” he says. A graduate in Hindi Literature, Patel’s parents work as agricultural labourers in their village and do not possess any ancestral land. “When they manage to find work, they earn ₹400. I wish to improve their circumstances. I studied hard for the Lekhpal exam, but the news of irregularities is making me anxious. For generations, my family lived in a state of inferiority; the government examination represents a chance for people like us to transform our lives,” he says.
The BriefWire