UPPSC reschedules PCS (pre) exam to December 22, students call off protest

Prayagraj: The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) has rescheduled the PCS (Preliminary) Examination 2024 to December 22, which was earlier scheduled to be held on December 7 and 8.

This reschedulement came following Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's initiative to address students' concerns.

Responding to the requests of students protesting in Prayagraj, the examination will now be conducted in a single day rather than over two days, as originally planned.

The revised exam will take place on December 22 in two shifts, from 9:30 am to 11:30 am and 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm. This change aims to ease travel and scheduling issues for candidates, enabling them to complete the exam in one day.

Prompted by Chief Minister, UPPSC took swift action to amend the schedule and address students' demands efficiently.

Meanwhile, satisfied with the decision of UPPSC to conduct the PCS (preliminary) exam in 'one day-one shift' as before and to form a committee on RO/ARO, the protest by the students ended on Friday for the time being.

President of Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti Pankaj Pandey said, "The government has accepted 90 percent of our demands and it hoped that the committee formed will consider the remaining demands sympathetically. Therefore, we are going to end the protest. There are still some students at the protest site who are there voluntarily and they have nothing to do with the movement of Sangharsh Samiti."

It may be noted that after the intervention of Yogi, the commission had decided to restore the old 'one day examination' system of PCS on Thursday. However, the agitation of the students for the restoration of the old system for Review Officer (RO) and Assistant Review Officer (ARO) continued till this morning.

In the afternoon, the students have decided to suspend the agitation till the report of the committee comes. Earlier, the agitating competitive students had said that the PCS (Preliminary) examination was announced to be held in 'one day-one shift' as before but by not taking a decision on RO/ARO and talking about forming a committee, the commission has divided the student movement.

The students said that if PCS examination can be conducted then why not RO/ARO. "Even before this, these examinations have been conducted in 'one day-one shift'," they said.

However, after the officials explained, the students decided to postpone their movement till the committee report came.