BREAKING: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah orders KPSC re-exam amid protests

By Vinaykumar Patil  |  First Published Sep 2, 2024, 1:29 PM IST

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has ordered a re-examination for the KPSC exams due to widespread protests over significant errors. The re-test, to be completed in two months, will incur no extra cost to candidates. The KPSC faces challenges in resource mobilization for the redo.


Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has ordered a re-examination of the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) exams, following widespread protests and complaints about significant errors in the recent tests. Siddaramaiah has directed officials to complete the re-examination within the next two months.

The decision comes in response to protests led by the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, which saw numerous students, writers, and thinkers gather at Freedom Park on Monday. The demonstrators criticized the examination process, highlighting issues such as translation errors and factual inaccuracies that they believe have unfairly affected all candidates, including those from Kannada media backgrounds.

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In response to the protests, the government has instructed KPSC to conduct the re-examination at no additional cost to the candidates. This is a significant move since the cost of organizing each examination typically comes from student fees. KPSC now faces the challenge of resource mobilization, as the funds for previous exams were collected from the candidates.

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Following the recent exam, student organizations, lecturers, and coaching centres identified errors in over 50 questions across Paper 1 and Paper 2. These errors included translation mistakes and factual inaccuracies. The Karnataka State Competitive Examination Aspirants' Association had previously written to CM Siddaramaiah, demanding a re-examination. They argued that 58 questions were deeply flawed, making a total of 116 marks unfairly allocated. They also called for legal action against those responsible, including the officers, expert committee members, and translators involved in the examination process.

Initially, KPSC had planned to review objections to the answer keys and gather opinions from an expert committee by the evening of September 4.

In the light of reports of inappropriate kannada translation of questions in the KPSC Gazetted Probationers' examination, I have directed KPSC to reconduct of the examination within 2 months to ensure fairness to all candidates

Those responsible for these lapses have been…

— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah)
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