23 States, 8 UTs have abolished interview for govt jobs: Jitendra Singh

New Delhi: Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Saturday that interview for recruitment in government jobs has been abolished in 23 States and eight Union Territories so far, according to a Personnel Ministry statement.

This, he said, is a follow-up to the abolition of interview for Group-B (non- gazetted) and Group-C posts in the central government since 2016.

It was in 2015 while speaking from the ramparts of Red Fort here on the occasion of Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had suggested abolition of the interview and making the job selection totally on the basis of the written test because whenever an interview call was received by a candidate, his entire family would get disturbed with apprehension and anxiety, the minister recalled.

On a quick follow-up to the prime minister’s advice, he said, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) undertook an expeditious exercise and within three months completed the entire process to announce the abolition of interview for recruitment in central government with effect from January 1, 2016.

While some States such as Maharashtra and Gujarat were quick to implement this rule, there were other States which were quite reluctant to abolish the conduct of interview for jobs, said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel.

He expressed satisfaction that after quite a bit of persuasion and repeated reminders to certain State governments, today the practice of conducting interview stands discontinued in all the eight Union Territories of India including Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, and 23 out of 28 States of the country, the statement said.

Singh said, in the past, there had been complaints, grievances and allegations about marks in the interview being manipulated to help certain favoured candidates. The abolition of the interview and considering only the written test marks as a merit for selection, he said, offers an equal level-playing field to all the candidates.

In addition to bringing in transparency and objectivity in the recruitment process, Singh said, several States have also reported heavy savings on the exchequer because quite a substantial expenditure was being incurred in conducting the interview of candidates whose number often ran in thousands and the interview process continued for several days together.

Pertinent to mention that earlier there had often been complaints of the written test merit being compromised by lowering the interview marks of the candidate in order to help certain candidates for dubious considerations, the statement said.

There were also allegations of jobs for money or heavy amount being paid to secure jobs by manipulating the interview marks, it said.