NEW DELHI , May 5(MIC): The newly appointed Chairman of Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) Dr. S. Singsit Retd IFS along with the two Members of MPSC P. Bharat Singh Retd IAS and M.A.Sattar Retd IAS on Wednesday called on the Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Prof D. P. Aggarwal in his office chamber at Dholpur House, Shahajahan Road here. In the 45 -minute meeting, the Chairman and Members of Manipur Public Service Commission received many suggestions and opinions from the UPSC Chairman for effective functioning of the Manipur Public Service Commission. The Chairman of UPSC assured them to provide all kinds of help in the functioning of the Manipur Public Service Commission.
The Chairman and Members of the Manipur Public Service Commission also attended the second lecture of the Union Public Service Commission Lecture series on Governance held on Tuesday at Vigyan Bhavan here. The lecture series aims at providing a forum for raising issues of contemporary relevance to governance and public administration.
In his Chief Guest address, the Vice-President of India, M. Hamid Ansari called for out-of-the-box thinking on quality and content issues pertaining to our higher civil services. He was delivering the second lecture of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Lecture Series on Governance in New Delhi today. He said that the higher civil services in the country, therefore, must be role models of elite behaviour upholding the Rule of Law. `This is not a homily; it is part of our constitutional scheme of things and a professional and moral obligation of a civil servant to the nation and to the citizens`, he said.
In his address, the Chairman of UPSC Prof D.P. Agrawal said that to tackle the enormous challenge of time-bound processing of more than 15 lakhs applications that it received every year, the Commission introduced the system of online application for the candidates, which had been receiving an overwhelming response. `Encouraged by the positive response, the Commission recently introduced hundred percent online applications for the Engineering Services Examination and the Indian Forest Service Examination. Recently, UPSC also conducted successfully one online recruitment test at different centres in the country. Based on the experience from this experiment, the Commission might, in future, introduce online examinations and tests for other selections as well`, he informed.
Informing that UPSC website already contained important new information apart from recruitment announcements, status of applications, and results; he said that UPSC had plans for introducing computer based applications for various examinations, and for an `always on`™ interactive voice response system over telephone so that interface between aspirants and the Commission is easy, efficient, and quick.
Prof Aggarwal further stated that the Commission received more than a million applications for all of the 14 regular examinations and other recruitments it conducted every year. `We finally recommend for appointment about 5000 officers every year, after a rigorous process of screening, testing, and personal interview as necessary. We also deal with promotions of over 600 central government officers, induction of about 300 officers from the State Services into the All India Services. In addition, UPSC also gave advice in 455 disciplinary cases in 2008-09. The workload is expected to increase in the future, and we are putting in place an IT Vision for UPSC so that our internal systems and processes become more efficient`, he informed.
