Castigating the State Government for collecting hefty fees for ensuing Punjab Civil Services (PCS) examination, the Punjabi Cultural Council (PCC) has asked the Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to intervene into the matter and lower existing application fees for all categories being collected from unemployed youth for this exam. Besides, Council has asked to raise upper age limit by two years due to delay in conducting this exam as stipulated in the notification.In a letter to the CM, the Council Vice Chairman Jaswant Singh Chhapa and Joint Secretary Gurpreet Singh has alleged that the Punjab Public Services Commission (PPSC) Patiala was charging hefty fees from general candidates to the tune of Rs 3,000 per applicant, Rs 1,750 from physically handicapped and Rs 1,125 from SC/ST/BC candidates. Comparing the fees with Haryana they informed that HPSC charges only Rs 1,000 for general candidates and Rs 250 from SC/ST/BC, handicapped, ex-serviceman and women applicants whereas Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) charges only Rs. 100 from general category and exempted SC/ST, handicapped, and women for appearing in civil services examination.While demanding to raise upper age limit for this examination, Council leaders argued that PPSC has advertised PCS examination after a gap of two years and the unemployed youth should be compensated by increasing the age limit from 37 years to 39 years as the notification in this regard issued by Punjab personnel department on May 17, 2012 No. GSR 22/Const/Art 309/Amd(1)/2012 clearly stipulates that commission would hold the examination every year and various dates have also been described.They informed that the union government had already raised upper age limit for two years for all departments as there as about 80 crore unemployed youth in the country. Apart from this Agricultural Sciences Recruitment Board has also enhanced this age limit for posts of research scientists.
Apart from this, the Council says, Punjab had also raised this age limit in 2012 from 36 years to 37 years for all departments due to delay in conduct examination.The Punjabi Cultural Council stated that PPSC had not conducted this competitive examination in the year 2016 and 2017 so the state should enhance applying age limit by two years for the same to provide golden opportunity to hundreds of unemployed youth who have become ineligible without any fault on their part in these years. They also contended that eligibility age for the post of DSP, an allied services in this exam, has been fixed not more than 28 years but in the UPSC this age limit was 32 years which was same in IAS and all the allied services. The Council has demanded justice for the same to rectify this variance on the pattern of UPSC civil services examination.Asking for equivalence with neighbouring states as well as Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) in allowing chances for appearing in this examination Punjabi Cultural Council said the PPSC gives only four chances up to the age of 37 years whereas UPSC allows six chances for competing civil services and Haryana grants unlimited chances till the age of 40 years for appearing in state civil services examination.Demanding a personal intervention from Captain Amarinder Singh to create uniform level playing field in civil services examination pattern, Chhapa and Gurpeet Singh contended that UPSC takes paper-II of preliminary examination as qualifying test but PPSC still including marks of Paper-II (CSAT) in the merit which ultimately benefits the candidates having background from science streams and this step was dead against the candidates coming from arts and rural background in Punjab.The Council has also asked the CM to provide regular scale to such newly recruited PCS and allied civil services officers as the notification for this examination degrades such officers by giving them only lumpsum and fixed salary without any grade pay and allowances for three years.