3.9 lakh candidates left in lurch as MPSC website crashes

While candidates alleged that they face problems every year,officials said the website crashed due to a virus attack. “We have asked students to update details by April 4 evening,after which we will decide future course of action,” said Subhash Thackre,chairman of MPSC.

MPSC helps recruit assistant sales tax commissioners,deputy registrars,deputy chief executive officers,panel officers,assistant development officers,deputy superintendents,assistant commissioners of state excise departments and regional transport officers. For 265 vacancies this year,3.9 lakh candidates applied.

Candidates claimed that their data on the website has been lost and the commission has asked them to fill the application forms again before April 4.

“We filled up the form in February and were supposed to download the hall tickets on Tuesday. When we tried logging into our accounts,our details and other data were deleted. Most of us have lost registration numbers,” said Arfaz Shaikh,a candidate.

Another candidate,Sharik Ahmed said,“The website is still not functioning. How can they expect students to fill up the application forms again at the last minute? They should have had a back-up.”

Thackre said MPSC had taken the help of cyber crime cell to ascertain whether the site was hacked. The students have been contacted through email and SMS.

“We lost all the data due to the virus attack. The students who have lost their registration numbers will have to update their data again,” Thackre said.About MPSC 2013

It is three-stage recruitment. Preliminary exam tests knowledge of English and Marathi. In the Main exam,students have to qualify English,Marathi,General studies and two optional subjects. The third stage is interview.

website always problematic

Last year in March,the website crashed several times as around 20,000 students tried to log in and fill up application forms at the same time.