‘Download fee for TNPSC's exam answer sheets too high’

‘Download fee for TNPSC's exam answer sheets too high’

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:27.04.2021

The move to allow candidates to download their answer scripts by Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) faced a flak from candidates as many felt that fee for the service is very high.

Following scams in Group IV and II-A exams, the TNPSC introduced several reforms including giving candidates an additional option and getting a thumb impression of candidates on the OMR sheets. As part of the reforms, the recruitment agency announced that candidates appearing for Group I main examination in July 2019 can download the scanned copy of evaluated answer scripts.

However, the commission has fixed ₹500 as fee to download the answer script for each paper. "If we want to see our answer scripts, we need to pay ₹1,500 to see all the three papers of the main exam. The fee is very high as the candidates are paying around ₹100 per exam. The amount is not affordable to many aspirants," a candidate from the city said.

Some candidates found several inconsistencies in the evaluation of answer scripts of the main exam.

"In the paper two in Tamil culture subject, the difference of marks for two evaluators is varying hugely. One evaluator gave 10 out of 15 marks and the second evaluator gave only two marks. I don't know how such a huge variation is possible and missed the opportunity to qualify for an interview very narrowly," another candidate who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

However, the candidate said the move had made her understand where she made mistakes and will help to correct them in future.

"The fee to get an answer sheets copy is very high. Even to get the answer sheets copy under RTI act costs around ₹360 for all the three papers," said U Sivabalan, academic head, TNPSC exams, Shankar IAS Academy.

TNPSC officials were not available for comments.