Hindustan
Times: Bhopal: Sunday, 09 November 2014.
Despite the
uproar and controversy over the Professional Examination Board (PEB) scam, the
state government has failed to implement its high-level panel’s recommendation
to place the board under jurisdiction of the general administration department
(GAD). Rather, the GAD and the state department of technical education (DTE),
under which the PEB still functions, are tossing the matter to each other,
separate replies to a right to information application show.
The shifting
was recommended by the high-level committee headed by former PEB chairman
Devraj Virdi in January this year. The committee had been constituted at the
initiative of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan right after he took the
reins for his third tenure in December 2013.
The intention
of the recommended shifting was to put the board under the watch of senior
bureaucratic and legislative eyes, given the extent of controversy it was
facing. The chief minister himself holds the GAD portfolio in the state.
The committee
also made a number of other recommendations (see box) on required structural
and exam-related changes in PEB, but the government failed to initiate action
on any of them during the past ten months.
The board has
itself, though, initiated action on some of the security and confidentiality-related
recommendations.
Recently, to
a RTI query filed by activist Ajay Dubey seeking the status of implementation
of the recommendations, especially related to shifting of PEB jurisdiction, the
GAD and DTE replied separately that the matter pertained to the other
department. Both the departments asked the applicant to seek information from
the other one.
The DTE went
to the extent of saying that it had never received the Virdi committee report
and thus had no information on it (copies of both replies are available with
HT).
"It is
strange that though the board continued to function under DTE, it did not get
the important recommendations. On its part, the GAD is saying that the matter
is related to the DTE and thus it should provide the information. This shows
the utter apathetical manner in which government is handling the highly
sensitive matter," activist Dubey said.
Principal
secretary to chief minister Iqbal Singh Bains said that the matter had not come
up for discussion at the CM’s office during the last two months (since he took
charge).
The minister
of state for GAD Lal Singh Arya, who had told HT three months ago that the
matter of shifting the board under GAD was under consideration of the
government, could not be contacted for fresh comments despite repeated
attempts.
Recommendations
of Virdi panel:
· PEB
should be placed under jurisdiction of the general administration department
from the technical education department
· It
should be renamed as MP junior services commission/board in view of the
emphasis on recruitment exams
· Number
of ex-officio and nominated members should be reduced to nine from existing 25
· Only
an IAS officer with impeccable service record should be appointed as director
of the board
· Postings
of director and controller of exam should always be separate and controller
should have at least ten years’ administrative experience
· Conducting
all the exams in online format from January 2015
· Security
features to be installed in entire system, which would generate SMS alert in
case of any unauthorised action
· Process
audit of all the process related to exam conduction. Report should be presented
to chairman within a month of the exam
· Double
password for every online system and double locking for store room.
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