To check “enormous wastage of time” between advertising vacancies and declaring results, a parliamentary standing committee has recommended that UPSC should consider conducting its examinations on the format adopted for GMAT, IIT and IIM entrance tests.
The Union Public Service Commission conducts various tests for recruitment to government services like civil services, forest service, engineering service and defence services and most of these are annual, conducted in various phases.
“The committee is of the view that this would prevent wastage of resources and time and would ensure transparency and instil greater confidence of candidates in the examination system,” said the parliamentary standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice in its report presented to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The panel also favoured increasing the number of UPSC members.
The committee said the state public service commissions also needed to be “toned up” and the personnel ministry should evolve a mechanism to ensure that the state PSCs were free from “shackles of nepotism and favouritism” so that they functioned independently and transparently.
The committee also favoured granting more powers to the department of personnel and training (DOPT), which is the “nerve centre” of the administration of all ministries/departments in the country. The DOPT secretary, it suggested, should be empowered to get replies from all secretaries immediately, and he should be treated as cabinet secretary manning all departments in respect of schemes/policies envisaged by the ministry and approved by the Cabinet.
