For 32-year-old Arun K, coming really close to qualifying in the Civil Services Examination, the most rigorous professional test in the country, was of little consolation.
Having exhausted all his chances and a better part of his youth in trying to qualify, he was left with the same predicament faced by a majority of those who appear for this exam: belatedly starting professional life from scratch. Despite being overqualified, he took up the only job that he managed to land after a desperate search — as an entry-level administrative assistant in a public school on the outskirts of Delhi.
Until he got a phone call from a Delhi-based corporate, which was fully updated about how he had fared in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination and evaluated him for his very pretty solid record in the penultimate stages of that exam, while taking into consideration his Masters degree, to eventually employ him at a mid-seniority grade and a salary that was multiples of what he was getting at the local school. The job position at the new employer was more in sync with his academic qualifications, and duly acknowledged his performance in what is regarded as the toughest qualifying examination in India.
And for this, he has to thank an initiative of the UPSC called the Public Disclosure Scheme (PDS), through which the Commission has started sharing details of the non-recommended, willing candidates of the Commission’s examinations with the private sector since early this year. Non-recommended candidates are essentially those who qualify in the written examinations but are not recommended post interview.
The logic for this is simple. The UPSC conducts 10 regular examinations every year and recommends some 6,400 successful candidates for appointments in various services; but approximately 26,000 candidates, who have already demonstrated their proficiency by clearing the rigorous written examinations, are declared not successful at the end of the process.
Arun was one among the 26,000, who did not qualify the interview, but ended up in the above 97 percentile in his examination category, and over-qualified for an entry-level job, but also overaged as compared to peers, and lacking in any work experience.
While this Scheme was launched in 2018 with a view to provide employment opportunities to these talented young people in government organisations and Public Sector Undertakings, there has been only marginal success in placing these candidates in a handful of PSU and government. This includes organisations such as the Cabinet Secretariat, Department of Water
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Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, the Delhi Jal Board and the Unique Identification Authority of India, but the numbers were really small. The only way to expand this was to cast the net wider.
In order to widen the scope of PDS, which has been subsequently been rebadged as Pratibha Setu, the Commission has launched a dedicated portal, where registered private companies can, alongside government-owned entities, also get access to the information of candidates using an identification number (a Ministry of Corporate Affairs-verified API that allows businesses to access and verify company information directly from the MCA database in India). They can then peruse the list of non-recommended candidates who have expressed their willingness to share their information, wherein their percentile (not absolute or percentage marks) is being made available.
Short biodatas of the candidates with their educational qualifications, contact numbers etc. have also been made available for those logging in, including players from the private sector. The portal also provides subject and discipline-wise search facilities to registered organisations in order to identify suitable candidates in line with their requirements.
The list of candidates is now being shared for the Civil Services Examination; as well as a number of other UPSC examinations include the Engineering Services Examination; the Indian Forest Service Examination; the Central Armed Police Forces (ACs) Examination; the Combined Geo-Scientist Examination; the CISF Assistant Commandants (Executive) LDCE’ the Combined Medical Services Examination; the Indian Economic Service/Indian Statistical Service Examination; the National Defence Academy and Naval Academy Examination; and the Combined Defence Service Examination. The list, with all the relevant details, is put up on the portal, which industry can access by simply logging in after registering.
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What is interesting is that the UPSC is also duly tracking the selection process of the candidates once they are shortlisted by the organisations, until the issue of appointment letters. This involves calls being made from the Commission on a regular basis to the companies that register for this scheme and generate logins. The status of selections from the master list is being updated at the backend on a near real-time basis, an official said. The facility for uploading a copy of the appointment letter has also been provided on the portal, which is being tabulated for calibrating the success rates.
“The portal shares the information of the non-recommended candidates of examinations conducted by the UPSC only for the restricted purpose of evaluation of suitability of the candidates for employment purpose and those assessing it are not expected to use the details for any other purpose or disclosure whatsoever,” the official said.
The Secretary, UPSC is learnt to have written to multiple government departments to disseminate the information about the portal to private companies working with each of these departments.
A detailed query to the UPSC seeking the progress on the uptake of candidates did not elicit a response. An official said it was still “early days” for the scheme, but the response has been far better now that the private sector has been involved in the scheme.
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