Goof-up at Pune centre, exams for FCI posts cancelled

Re-exam likely on March 31 or April 7

The Food Corporation of India's examinations for the post of technical assistant and general posts on Sunday were cancelled all over India due to a question paper goof-up at an examination centre in Pune. Over 85,000 candidates were scheduled to take the two papers all over the country, said N K Raghupathy, chairman, Staff Selection Commissioner.

Over 15 lakh students across the country had appeared for the screening exam (Paper 1) held last year, of which above 85,000 candidates were shortlisted for the two-hour Paper 2 (technical assistant post) and Paper 3 (general post) exams.

"The general post exam (Paper 3) was scheduled at 10 am. But the students were distributed question papers of technical post exam (Paper 2). They were made to sit in the examination hall till 11 am, till the time the officials arrived at a decision. They later cancelled both the morning and the afternoon exam that was scheduled at 2 pm," said Vasim Momin, a BSc Agriculture student. The exam centre in Pune was Sadhna High School in Hadapsar.

"The papers are kept in high secrecy. All officials have only some pieces of information but not all. Hence, despite the high security, such untoward incidences happen. But these are very rare. There was some information gap at the local level due to which this happened," said Raghupathy.

He added that such a goof-up in question papers was anticipated by him last year and hence all question papers bunches were checked carefully before being dispatched. But it was not done this time as there was a possibility of compromising with the security of the paper, said Raghupathy. "There was a goof-up in question paper mentioned in Pune. But we were not sure in which all centres this mistake had taken place. Hence, we cancelled the examination in all centres across India to be on the safe side," he said.

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