The Gujarat Public Service Commission (GPSC) recently introduced a Rs 100 fee for candidates to challenge its answer key, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from aspirants who call it an unfair financial burden.
Defending the decision, the GPSC chairman Hasmukh Patel has stated that the fee was implemented to curb “frivolous objections, many of which were baseless or supported by incorrect evidence.” He also noted that similar fees are charged in other states, such as “Rs 150 in Madhya Pradesh, Rs 100 in Himachal Pradesh, and Rs 250 in Haryana.”
The controversy escalated after the GPSC conducted the Assistant Manager, Class-3 (Gujarat State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited) exam on January 19. The provisional answer key was released the next day. Aspirants found several errors in the key, including a question on Gujarat’s foundation year, which was incorrectly marked as 1961 instead of the correct 1960. In post on X at 10 pm, chairman Patel acknowledged the “errors” and said that a new provisional answer key will be made.
Earlier in the day, the chairman had posted on social media defending the fee, stating, “The decision to charge for raising objections was taken with care and will not be changed. Students can criticise it as much as they want, but the Commission will continue to take necessary steps to improve the examination system.”
Aspirants have opposed the Rs 100 fee for challenging the answer key and asked why candidates should bear this burden in the first place. Isn’t it the commission’s responsibility, given that it assigns the task of question setting to experts, to ensure its accuracy?
In 2017 order against the Council of Scientific And Industrial Research over the December 2016 joint CSIR-NET results, the Punjab and Haryana high court had urged examining bodies to set error limits in question papers and penalise violations. Similarly, the Madras high court in 2019 criticised the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission for errors in 24 questions in the preliminary exam, with Justice V. Parthiban saying that repeated mistakes could harm credibility and disadvantage candidates.
The GPSC is the constitutional authority responsible for shortlisting candidates for government service in Gujarat. Among the key examinations it conducts is the Gujarat Administrative Service and the Gujarat Civil Services (GAS and GCS, Class 1-2). The examination consists of three stages: prelims, mains, and an interview.
The GPSC conducts the prelims using OMR sheets. For transparency, it uploads the OMR sheets on the same day of the exam. Following this, generally within two or three days, the GPSC uploads the provisional answer key (PAK) and invites objections from candidates. These objections filed by the candidates are reviewed by experts, who then prepare the final answer key (FAK). The papers are checked based on the final answer key by computers.
Since the prelims are computerised, they can be completed quickly. For instance, the entire process for the exams under the advertisement number 30/2021-22 including the exam, release of PAK, objections, and release of FAK, was completed in just 25 days. Under this advertisement number, exams were conducted to positions of the Gujarat Administrative Service Class-1, Gujarat Civil Services, Class-1 and Class-2, and Gujarat Municipal Chief Officer Service, Class-2.
But this speed is not a given in all exams. The same process took 264 days for the exams under the advertisement number 20/2022-23. In this case, the exam was conducted on January 8, 2023, and the final answer key was published on September 29, 2023. One of the primary reasons for these delays appears to be the incorrect answers provided by paper setters.
In my analysis of six major exams conducted by GPSC in recent years, I found that papers consistently had 20-30 incorrect or misleading questions and answers, which made up about 6-13% of the total questions. These errors led to court cases and significant delays, wasting candidates’ time and causing them mental stress.
| Exam advertisement number | Exam name | Total questions | Revised answers | Cancelled questions | Total changes (sum of revised answers and cancelled questions) | % of Change |
| 47/2023-24 | GAS and GCS Class 1-2 | 400 | 22 | 9 | 31 | 7.75 |
| 20/2022-23 | GAS and GCS Class 1-2 | 400 | 22 | 14 | 36 | 9 |
| 30/2021-22 | GAS and GCS Class 1-2 | 400 | 16 | 8 | 24 | 6 |
| 10/2019-20 | GAS and GCS Class 1-2 | 400 | 28 | 11 | 39 | 9.75 |
| 42/2023-24 | Dy Section Officer | 200 | 18 | 8 | 26 | 13 |
| 10/2022-23 | Dy Section Officer | 200 | 10 | 3 | 13 | 6.5 |
An RTI response I received from the GPSC in September 2024 revealed that the commission pays Rs 100 to Rs 150 per question and maintains a question bank for its exams. For selecting 200 questions with answers from this bank, GPSC spends Rs 25,000 per paper, totalling Rs 50,000 for the two papers in an exam. This means GPSC spends Rs 90,000 to Rs 1,10,000 to frame 400 questions and answers for a single exam.
RTI reply, September 19, 2024. Translation: Commission paid Rs.150 per question to make the question bank for the exam of advertisement number 47/2023-24,20/2023-24,10/2019-20. It paid Rs. 100 per question for the exam of advertisement numbers 42/2023-24 and 10/2022-23. Rs. 25,000p was paid per paper to make a question paper (with the answer key) from the question bank.
After the exam, GPSC releases the PAK, allowing candidates to raise objections and effectively review the commission’s answers. For example, in Exam 30/2021-22, candidates submitted 3,697 objections to the PAK, according to the RTI response. These objections are then reviewed by experts, who are paid Rs 2,500 per paper (Rs 5,000 for two papers) or Rs 250 per question if there are more than 10 questions to review. Based on the experts’ findings, the FAK is published. However, errors occasionally persist even after the experts’ reviews.
In Exam 20/2022-23, the FAK was released on April 10, 2023. However, after a candidate challenged it in the Gujarat high court (Special Civil Application No. 8379 of 2023), the GPSC had to publish a revised FAK on September 29, 2023. This process thus took over 250 days.
This revision of the answer key created a complicated situation: candidates who initially qualified under the answers in the PAK could become ineligible under the revised one, while those previously ineligible might now qualify. The Gujarat high court directed the GPSC to allow both groups to appear in the mains exam.
An RTI reply on August 16, 2024. Translation: Information sought is related to fiduciary relationship with the experts and secret, and hence can not be disclosed.
The recurring problem of incorrect answers set by the exam cell raises serious questions about the performance of the paper setters. In an RTI, I sought information on this, asking if there any qualifications or criteria regarding education, experience, etc. set by the commission for the paper settlers of various exams.
In response, GPSC stated that the information sought is related to fiduciary relationship with the experts, that it is a secret and hence cannot be disclosed. In my RTI request, I sought information regarding the penalties and punishments imposed on paper setters, but GPSC did not provide this information either.
It said: “The information sought pertains to the secrecy and privacy of the paper setters and, therefore, cannot be disclosed.”
In the process, it is aspirants who suffer. A GPSC aspirant who has been writing the exam for the last three years, said, requesting anonymity: “If we make a single mistake and fall just one mark short of the cutoff, years of preparation and countless dreams are shattered. Meanwhile, those setting the papers face no consequences for their errors.”
