The pitfalls of hasty decision

Assam government's move to engage five universities in the state to conduct the entire recruitment process for filling up vacant posts in various government departments is a hasty decision. Some of these universities are gripped by the problem of long delays in declaring results of their own semester and final year examinations which raises the question over the wisdom of the government move. The State government's decision follows the leaking of question paper for the recruitment of Sub Inspectors in the Assam Police and subsequent unearthing of a huge racket involving political leaders and a former senior official in the police force. The Assam Police have arrested two of the prime accused and several others and their interrogations are expected to provide more leads into the scam and the racket.

The State Level Police Recruitment Board reconstituted by the government has decided to hold the cancelled examination on November 22. It is not only the police department, recruitment process in several other government departments in the state has been gripped by litigations and allegations of irregularities. Outsourcing the recruitment process to private agencies with doubtful credentials is believed to be one of the reasons for the mess. The reconstituted police recruitment board has huge task of restoring the trust and confidence of the candidates and ensuring accountability in the recruitment process. Approaching the universities for conducting the recruitment examinations appears to have been guided by urgency on the part of the government to carry out the recruitment drive before the start of process of the 2021 Assembly polls. At the same time, it cannot leave any room for anomalies to crop up due to loopholes in recruitment examinations conducted by private agencies.

The State government has issued a notification that Dibrugarh University will conduct the recruitment examinations for Police, Home Guards, Prisons, Panchayat and Rural Development and Labour Departments, Gauhati University will conduct examinations for Industries and Commerce, Skill Development, Transport, Excise, Forest and Environment, Tezpur University to conduct examinations for Irrigation department, Assam University to conduct recruitment examinations for Social Welfare and Soil Conservation departments. There can be no doubt that the universities will ensure a fair and transparent recruitment process including holding of written examinations and conducting the interviews. However, it is not prudent to overburden the universities with responsibilities unrelated to their core objectives. Conducting academic examinations for semester and final year and entrance tests for admission into engineering and medical colleges cannot be equated with the conducting examinations for government recruitments.

The state universities are reeling under perennial crisis of large number of teaching and non-teachings posts lying vacant. By agreeing to the State government's proposal, the understaffed universities are only going to increase the load of unacademic work. The University Grants Commission's guidelines for commencing the first-year classes of undergraduate and postgraduate course from November 1 show that new session in the pandemic situation is going to be packed for the universities with curtailment of winter and summer holidays. The universities and colleges will also have to conduct the classes six days a week to make up for the losses due to pandemic situation. In such a situation, the universities shouldering additional burden of conducting recruitment for government departments runs the risk of its normal academic activities including conducting semester and final year examinations and declaring results in time being hampered. The reputation of the universities will be adversely affected by such disruption. The universities need to discuss the pros and cons of conducting recruitment examinations for government departments with its academic communities before a formal engagement. An alternative to engaging the universities in government recruitment lies in the recent decision of the Union Cabinet to set up a National Recruitment Agency for recruitment in various Central government departments.

The proposed NRA will conduct a Common Eligibility Test (CET) and based on the CET score a candidate will be eligible to apply against vacancy in a Central government department. The CET scores will be valid for a period of three years from the date of declaration of results. The State government can take a cue from the Union Cabinet's decision to set up a State Recruitment Agency and seek the academic expertise of the universities in designing the syllabus and pattern of the CET. In a state with over 17 lakhs educated unemployed and raising of the age ceiling, the number of job seekers against vacancies in government departments has been constantly on the rise. Over 66,000 candidates applying against 597 SI posts in Assam Police points towards the load the universities may eventually be required to handle for conducting recruitment examinations in some major government departments. The State government seeking expertise of the universities to train the government departments in ensuring transparency and accountability in conducting examinations for recruitment would have been more reasonable and logical.