By Rachel Dammala
Copyright deccanchronicle
Hyderabad:For thousands of aspirants who failed to make the cut in the Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC) Group-1 Mains, Tuesday’s High Court order for a manual re-evaluation has come as both relief and vindication.Many pointed to Paper VI on Telangana Movement and State Formation as the biggest stumbling block. “In our centre, six of us who studied the subject seriously got barely 55-60, while some English-medium candidates elsewhere scored 80-90. This was never about merit, it was about where your script landed,” said Kavitha R., who missed the overall cutoff by fewer than 15 marks.The disparities were echoed by others. “How can 74 people from just one centre enter the top 500, while 25 other centres together had only 68? That tells you the evaluation itself was skewed,” said Chandrasekhar V., a candidate who joined one of the petitions in court.The sense of injustice was sharpened by the narrow margins. With the seven descriptive papers together carrying 900 marks, even a 20-mark swing in one subject was enough to push people out of contention. “I had 510 overall. The cut-off was around 525. One unfairly marked paper decided my fate after three years of preparation,” said another aspirant, preferring not to be named.Candidates also flagged that Telugu-medium scripts were often corrected by non-Telugu evaluators. “You cannot expect someone unfamiliar with the language to assess nuance. We always felt disadvantaged, and today’s order finally acknowledges that concern,” said Priya Menon, who wrote in Telugu and believes that’s why she missed the selection.While those who had cleared the exam worry about losing ground, the overwhelming mood among the non-qualifiers was that the process must be transparent.Not everyone is celebrating the High Court’s order. For some, the thought of another round after years of waiting brings only dread. “We’ve been preparing for years, and if the re-evaluation isn’t finished in time, we may be forced to write the exam all over again. That uncertainty is exhausting,” said Anil, a candidate from Karimnagar, as he admitted he was unsure if he had the strength to start the cycle again.TSPSC has earlier defended its evaluation system, insisting that each script was checked by multiple examiners and averages taken. But for the large pool of candidates who missed out, the court’s direction for a fresh, manual process offers a rare but tedious second chance.
