Dear Editor,
State A.E and JE exams should be conducted as per UPSC, ESE and SSC pattern and syllabus respectively.
Engineers, specially civil, electrical and mechanical are the basic builders of every developing nation. Our state’s pathetic road, power, other infrastructure’s conditions can only be improved if govt recruits the hardworking and quality engineers provided department secretaries are Direct IAS. Quality recruitment is possible only if there is quality examination held every year. Let me highlight the major drawbacks of AE / JE exam. Firstly, its the syllabus; the syllabus is very little. It is not even 30 % of the UPSC syllabus.
Many subjects like Fluid mechanics, engineering mathematics, and vast portion of other subjects are excluded.
Secondly, the exam pattern; the exam consist of 1 tier ( only writing section) instead of 3 tier( prelims, mains and viva) thus causing difficulties in selection of knowledgeable candidate.
Lastly the most important factor is marking scheme of the exam. The mark distribution of JE (junior engineer)exam is English : 100 ,G.K :100, Technical:100. And A.E (assistant engineer) exam is 100:100:200. There is no other single state or any UPSC service where combined mark of English and G.K would exceed 20 % of the total mark in any technical job. A lucky candidate with good language and superficial knowledge (low technical knowledge ) would easily crack this exam. This exam needs a technical person and not a generalist like civil servants.
This little syllabus combined with wrong marking scheme and exam pattern is only causing difficulties in purifying and identifying hard working technical candidate. It would not hurt me if a hard-working aspirant is selected but what hurt the most is watching incompetent candidates getting selected either by back door entry or due to wrong marking scheme.
So, I appeal to the concerned department and Chief Minister Pema Khandu to kindly look into this matter and bring changes in recruitment process by following UPSC ESE / SSC JE syllabus, pattern for AE/ JE respectively.
Sincerely,
An aspirant