Exam papers leaked, says TS NSUI president

HYDERABAD: The state government is trying to restrict information regarding the recruitment exam question paper leakage to the TSPSC (TS Public Service Commission) so that the other exams don’t come under the scanner, said NSUI state president Balmoori Venkat on Tuesday.

He said that an instance of mass copying has come to light in the Junior Lineman exam held by the Southern Discom on April 30. The results showed that 92 of the 162 aspirants who took the exam at the Geetanjali College of Engineering and Technology in Keesara had qualified. In all other centres, only two aspirants had qualified.

The exam was first held on August 26, 2022, but was cancelled after protests alleging leakage of the question paper. It was held again on April 30 with a fresh notification issued more posts — 1,553. Of the 60,000 who applied for the exam, 50,000 took the test.

Venkat said, “If Ramesh, a DE (divisional engineer) in the TSNPDCL is being accused of leaking TSPSC question papers, we raised a doubt if there had been a leakage in the TSSPDCL exam also. When we dug further we found the discrepancy of aspirants from one centre bagging more marks. The exam was conducted in 50 centres but only one block had 92 candidates clearing the exam.”

He said that to hide the scam, access to the answer sheets, which can usually be easily downloaded, had been restricted and an OTP option inserted. “This was done to restrict the download option to only the candidate. The government should come clean on this,” Venkat said.

The NSUI leader said the exams are being held under the same official machinery in the TSPSC. The government should come clean on if DE Ramesh had leaked the Discom exam papers too, he said.

When TSPSC secretary Anitha Ramachandran knew that A1 accused Pulidindi Praveen Kumar was going to take the exam, why was he allowed to be involved in the exam process, Venkat asked.

“This looks akin to the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh. The rot is being covered up to protect the government from the political backlash, Venkat said.