[ Bengia Ajum ]
ITANAGAR, 5 Aug: A group of aspirants has raised a red flag over the recently concluded Arunachal Engineering Service Examination (AESE)-2025 prelims for the post of assistant engineer in various departments. They have written to the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC), which conducted the preliminary exam, to look into the concerns raised by them and address them.
In their representation to the commission, the aspirants have raised three major pertinent issues. They alleged that there has been an overlap of candidates in the selected list, with names of the same set of 362 candidates appearing in both merit lists – those meant exclusively for civil engineering posts and those common to both civil and agricultural engineering. The aspirants claimed that this overlapping has led to many candidates being counted twice, leading to disruption in the intended selection ratio.
“As a consequence, the representation of candidates in the list of candidates shortlisted for the next stage is inadvertently reduced,” they added.
The aspirants claimed that, as per the official advertisement issued by the commission, candidates with a degree in agricultural engineering were eligible for the three departments, namely, Rural Works, Water Resource, and Hydropower Development, while the candidates with a degree in civil engineering were eligible for the above three departments as well as for Public Works Department, Public Health Engineering & Water Supply Department, Urban Development and Urban Local Bodies. “These 362 candidates have qualified for both categories for the mains exam. But this dual listing was not stated or authorized in the notification, nor was it clarified through any corrigendum or circular at any stage of the recruitment process,” they added.
Further, the aspirants alleged that, as per the notification, the candidates were required to apply to specific engineering departments and there was no provision for dual-eligibility or cross-division consideration between “civil-exclusive” and “civil + agriculture common pool” categories.
The aspirants also alleged that the 1:12 ratio was not followed while shortlisting the candidates. “Total vacancies are 136, and therefore, 1,632 candidates should have been shortlisted for the mains. But only 1,257 candidates have been shortlisted. The commission has not followed the 1:12 ratio,” the aspirants claimed.
The aspirants also raised questions over preliminary examination marks being used to segregate candidates while selecting.
“As clearly stated in the advertisement, the preliminary examination is qualifying in nature, and as such, further selection decisions should not be based on marks obtained in the preliminary stage,” they added.
They have sought clarity from the commission on how some candidates were selected in both categories and why it was not notified during the conduct of the exam. Further, they called for applying a 1:12 ratio while shortlisting candidates in both categories. They also sought a proper inquiry into the alleged mistakes in selecting the candidates for the main AES examination.
The commission, upon being contacted, denied any wrongdoing but said that it would look into the concerns raised by the aspirants.
