Staff Selection Commission,which would soon start the process of filling up over 50,000 vacant posts,has seen a four-fold surge in the number of candidates taking various examinations conducted by it within a span of one year,its chairman N K Raghupathy has said. "This is for the first time that the Union Government has decided to conduct a common recruitment examination for recruitment of constables in all the Central Police Organisations through SSC. Earlier,the respective CPOs used to make recruitment of constables by their own," Raghupathy told reporters here. On the surge in number of candidates,he said that as against 11.5 lakh candidates who took various examinations held by the SSC in 2009-10 out of a total 18.1 lakh applications received,the SSC would be handling a whopping 55 lakh applications in 2010-11,with 47 lakh candidates expected to appear for various examinations. He said that the Union Home Ministry had intimated the SSC about 53,200 vacancies of constables that exist now in the CPOs and told them that these could go up to 80,000 by the time they conduct the examination. "The vacancies are to be filled up within six months,with the Home Ministry asking us that they want to fill up the vacancies in ITBP and Assam Rifles on priority," he said,adding those candidates who are domiciled in a particular state are eligible for the posts reserved in those states. Raghupathy said that out of total vacancies of constables,1257 were reserved for women while there were state-wise reservations as well which included 1423 for J&K including 236 for the border districts like Baramulla,Kupwara,Poonch,Rajouri,Jammu,Kathua,Leh and Kargil,1036 for Punjab State,620 for Haryana and 217 for HP. Refugees from Pakistan who settled in J&K were also eligible to take the examination,which will be held on June 5 after the eligible candidates had qualified in physical standard/physical efficiency test,he said. The CPOs cover the para military forces including CRPF,BSF,ITBP,SSB and CISF. The SSC chairman said the commission,which proposes to have a sub-regional office opened at Srinagar this year,is planning to conduct a "special examination" for J&K candidates shortly for the posts of auditors and for vacancies in other departments. As against 10,576 candidates getting selected for various jobs in 2009-10,SSC was expecting to make over 25,000 recruitments in the current fiscal,Raghupathy said. Asked on the abrupt increase in number of candidates taking the examinations conducted by it,he said the reason for this was the implementation of the recommendations of the second Administrative Reforms Commission. "We have done restructuring of our examination system and also changed the format,with objective type questions replacing the descriptive type. The expert group that was formed in 2009 by us with regards to implementation of the recommendations also suggested to do away with interview in those examinations,where there was no public interaction,like in case for the auditors. "We also sped up the process of declaration of results which helps in vacancies getting filled up fast. The single-stage examination process gets completed in less than six months from the date of advertisement of the posts,for two-stage examination,we take nine months while the multi-stage examination process will be completed in one year's time," he said.
