New syllabus out for assistants’ recruitment test.

Indian Express; Atikh Rashid; Friday, July 22, 2011,

Pune : MPSC to rework syllabi of main examinations for sales tax inspector, police sub inspector next.

Following its decision to conduct separate main examinations for recruitment of police sub inspector, sales tax inspector and assistant (ministry), the Maharashtra Public Service Commission is reworking the syllabi for these examinations with a view to making them more suitable for the posts.

The new syllabus for the main examination for recruitment of assistant (ministry) was put up on the MPSC website on Wednesday. The General Studies paper, for 200 marks, will now include Computer Technology for 50 marks and Right to Information Act for 30 marks. These subjects will replace Economics, Science and Technology and Agriculture in the old syllabus.

“An assistant in Mantralaya should have good computer stills besides some knowledge of RTI. That is why we have introduced these subjects and have given good weightage to them,” MPSC public relations officer Chandrashekhar Pawar said.

Besides General Studies, the examination will have Marathi and English papers for 200 marks. The new syllabus for sales tax inspector tests will have subjects related to taxation while that for the police sub inspector will have those linked to law.

The change in syllabus seems to have gone down well with the academia. Former IAS officer and founder of civil services academy Chanakya Mandal Avinash Dharmadhikari said, “I am yet to get the details of the changed syllabus, but the basic idea to test candidates for knowledge required for the post concerned is good.”

Many aspirants to the posts, however, said the commission should have announced earlier. “It is a positive change but they have declared the changed syllabus with the recruitment advertisement. It should have been done much earlier so that students could prepare for the new subjects beforehand,” Sangram Kadam Jahagirdar of Ahmednagar said. Mahesh Kokare, another aspirant from Pune, said, “When the UPSC changed the syllabus, they conveyed it about a year in advance. The MPSC should have declared it at least six months ago.”

MPSC officials do not agree. “The preliminary test for assistants’ recruitment will be conducted on August 28. There is a minimum four months for the main exam. We will be declaring the changed syllabus for the sales tax inspector test next week, though the recruitment advertisement will appear in September,” Pawar said.