The Personnel & Administrative Reforms (P&AR) department has appealed to the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF), other student bodies, candidates, their parents and guardians, and the citizens at large to appreciate the need to continue the current recruitment process with the existing Nagaland Staff Selection Board (NSSB) regulations and let the forthcoming interview process starting on April 18 be conducted without any hindrance in the interest of the future of the meritorious youth.
Reacting to April 13, 2023 NSF representation to the chief secretary objecting to the viva-voce component in the ensuing Combined Staff Recruitment Examination (CSRE), 2022 and demanding reduction of the personal interview marks from 12.5% to 5%, P&AR secretary Akunu S Meyase clarified that the State government, with due consultation with various stakeholders, including NSF, set up the NSSB and notified the NSSB regulations on July 20, 2020, which was also in the public domain.
Meyase said the NSSB had advertised its first Combined Staff Recruitment Exams 2022 on September 9, 2022 for 630 posts. Accordingly, written exams were conducted at 111 exam centres across 13 district headquarters for around 50,000 candidates. Of these, 1,866 candidates were shortlisted requiring computer proficiency test and other skill tests.
Currently, she mentioned that 1,368 candidates had been called for viva-voce that would commence from April 18 and continue till June 28.
Meyase explained that the government had framed the regulations taking into account the practices of other State recruitment boards and agencies that had retained viva-voce and interviews as an integral requirement of the recruitment process. Meyase pointed out that the Supreme Court had in its recent order had directed for 12.5% of the total marks for the viva-voce in the recruitment process under Haryana Staff Selection Commission.
The official quoted Section 45 (10) of the NSSB Regulations, 2020: “The Marks allotted for Personal Interview shall be fixed at not more than 12.5% of the total marks of the examination process”.
Further, Section 45 (12) read, “Marks awarded to a candidate appearing in the Personal Interview shall not be less than 40% of the total marks allotted for Interview and generally not more than 80% of the total marks allotted for Interview”.
Therefore, as a corollary to the provisions under Section 45 (12), only 5% out of 12.5% was left for the NSSB to assess and award the marks for the personal interview, Meyase pointed out.
In the discussions with the NSF, the secretary claimed that it was made clear that the State government was open to the idea of reviewing the NSSB regulations concerning the proportion of total marks to be allotted for written and interview exams, among others, before advertising the next cycle of recruitment.
However, since the current recruitment process was started with existing regulations, Meyase appealed that it should be allowed to go on without any change.
Meyase mentioned that the NSSB, being a new organisation, was putting in place strong systems to ensure a robust, transparent and IT-enabled recruitment process. The official said the NSSB was confident that the interview process would be completed smoothly and transparently as per the regulations.
