Kolkata: The Bengal govt is planning to bring in a new recruitment policy during the assembly’s budget session and introduce a comprehensive overhaul of the state’s hiring process to eliminate corruption.CM Suvendu Adhikari said the policy will be transparent and restructure Bengal’s examination and hiring process. The new policy is likely to be discussed on June 6 during a meeting involving each of the recruitment organisations in the state.Speaking at a Rozgar Mela in Sealdah on Saturday, Adhikari said: “We will bring in a fresh recruitment policy in the next budget session. The evaluation (of examinees) will be based on their academic performance. We want the recruitment process to be transparent.”Adhikari said Bengal will emulate the central govt’s recruitment processes, such as those used by the Railway Recruitment Board. “The Railway Recruitment Board has a hiring process. We will follow that structure to bring in transparency to the recruitment process,” the CM said, adding that discussions have already been held on the matter.Pointing out that Bengal’s public recruitment systems have been severely compromised by cash-for-jobs scams, severely affecting govt hiring, Adhikari referred to scams involving manipulation of merit lists, bribery and the destruction of OMR answer sheets that wrecked the teacher recruitment process.The Supreme Court ordered the cancellation of more than 25,000 teaching and non-teaching jobs from the 2016 State Level Selection Test citing irredeemable fraud and manipulated merit lists that tainted the entire recruitment process. This led to mass protests and hunger strikes by examinees across the state. During recruitments at municipalities, large-scale Optical Mark Recognition sheet-based frauds were also noticed.“I asked officials about the processes a written examination involves. They said that while the written test is conducted over OMR sheets, the carbon copy is not handed over to the students. This is a very bad practice. Such a process encourages nepotism, corruption and mala fide intentions,” Adhikari said.The CM said he felt that candidates should be provided with compulsory carbon copies of their OMR answer sheets to establish direct transparency. Plans were also in place to reduce the weightage of viva and interview stages during selections, he added.“Maximum weightage is allocated to the viva session and that is not good. The weightage should be minimised for viva sessions or interviews,” Adhikari said.The Bengal govt has already announced a five-year age relaxation for over-age job applicants. Adhikari also said that the “100-point roster” will be followed during recruitment processes.A “100-point roster” is a regulatory mechanism used by govt bodies and institutions to ensure equitable reservation in hiring and promotions.
