Mumbai, April 4: Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan Wednesday said that the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) exams would be held April 7 as scheduled across the state.
He shot down demands for postponing the exams after the MPSC's main server crashed following a virus attack and wiped out data of all 300,000-plus candidates, barely four days before the exams.
"All candidates would be intimated their exam centre details via SMS. They can produce their exam fee receipt with a photograph to write the exams. There will be no compulsion on the hall ticket," Chavan told the state assembly.
Earlier in the day, the MPSC came under fire from political parties for "careless" due to which it lost valuable computerised data of the candidates.
Legislators cutting across party lines demanded that MPSC should postpone the examinations by at least a fortnight to enable aspirants complete relevant formalities like submitting fresh data, getting hall tickets, allotment of exam centres and write their exams.
The MPSC has directed all students to resubmit the data by Thursday evening, after which it will issue hall tickets Friday.
Political activists of Nationalist Congress Party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Republican Party of India and NGO's demonstrated outside the MPSC office in south Mumbai in support to the candidates.
They also raised questions about the MPSC failure to maintain a backup of the data.
The MPSC is to hold the exam on Sunday for two papers of 200 marks each, with negative marking for wrong answers. The exams are on the lines conducted by the UPSC.
