The OPSC Civil Services Exam aspirants on Friday staged a demonstration at Master Canten square in Bhubaneswar, demanding immediate postponement of the OAS Mains examination.
Citing the relentless uptrend of Covid-19 case graph in the State, the agitating students urged the OPSC Chairman to consider the health of the candidates before the conduct of examinations. Many alleged that hundreds of OAS aspirants are down with infection so it is imperative that the Commission should put the examination on hold for now and conduct it only after the peak of ongoing third wave of the pandemic.
As per the schedule, the OAS Mains examination will be held from January 20 till February 8. Around 5,000 candidates are eligible to sit for the examination.
“Dozens of candidates, who are down with Covid-19 infection, have already dispatched their health status reports for the knowledge of the OPSC through micro-blogging site Twitter and mail. Our primary concern is that if the exam continues for 20 days and a candidate gets infected with Covid-19 during the exam, a year of his/her labour will go waste. So we demand that the exam should be held after the peak period of the pandemic because only then candidates can have the opportunity to sit for the exam without any fear,” said Binay Kumar, an aspirant.
Meanwhile, the OPSC has informed that the declared exam dates are still in place.
However, the OPSC has not reacted anything with respect to the demands of the aspirants.