Kerala government wants to reduce the number of candidates included in the Public Service Commission rank lists.
In the absence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, this was announced in the Assembly on Friday by excise and local self government minister M V Govindan. Nonetheless, this cannot be seen as a new policy decision that has been prompted by the ongoing agitation of PSC rank holders. The LDF government had in December, 2019, itself appointed the K K Dineshan Commission to study the issue of disproportionately long rank lists and make recommendations. The Commission is yet to submit its report.
Reading from a policy note prepared for the Chief Minister, Govindan said that the rank lists should be proportionate to the vacancies available. The existing practice is to include in the rank list five times more candidates than the number of vacancies.
"This is leading to various kinds of exploitation and other undesirable tendencies," Govindan said, suggesting that PSC rank holders who have still not got jobs were being easily misled by political opponents.
The Chief Minister, too, had earlier criticised the long PSC rank lists and had said it had given job aspirants unrealistic expectations. "Not everyone from the rank list can be given a job," the Chief Minister had said in the Assembly during the just concluded session.
He had said that the size of rank lists were increased in the hope that more candidates from the reserved communities would secure a job. He said when the rank lists were smaller it was found that the representation of reserved communities were abysmally low.
To resolve this poor representation, a sub-clause 14 E was added to the 1958 Kerala State Subordinate Service Rules on the basis of Justice Narendran Commission report when the Oommen Chandy ministry was in power. The new clause stipulated that the number of candidates included in the PSC rank list for each reserved community should not be less than five times the quota allotted to that community.
Though the number of candidates from reserved communities got more representation in jobs, the lists got bloated beyond control. It led to litigations in the courts, demands for extending the validity period of rank lists besides a host of complaints from the candidates.
It was in this context that the Dineshan Commission was appointed. The Commission is yet to submit its report.
