COVID-19| Junior Assistant aspirants demand deferment of exams

Srinagar, Jan 16: The aspirants of Junior Assistant (JA) posts have opposed the decision of the J&K Service Selection Recruitment Board (SSRB) to hold the examination through offline mode.

The JKSSRB has scheduled the examination for the post on January 20.

However, the candidates said that holding recruitment examinations in offline mode was “dangerous” amid a major spike in COVID-19 cases.

Greater Kashmir received distressed calls from several aspirants who demanded postponement of the examination citing a rise in the COVID-19 cases reported daily in J&K.

“We want the SSRB Junior Assistant exam to be postponed due to our health conditions and keeping in view the COVID-19 threat,” an aspirant said.

The aspirants said all the universities postponed their exams despite having few students to appear in the exams.

“No doubt the deferment of exams will extend their degree but health is a priority which all the universities and students realised,” another aspirant said.

The aspirants said that the driving test had been deferred as well keeping in view the rise in COVID-19 cases.

“We fail to understand on what grounds SSRB notified the date sheet for Junior Assistant examination from January 20,” they said.

The aspirants said thousands of students had applied for the post and there were apprehensions of social gathering in the examination centres.

“Some aspirants are psychologically unfit due to health issues. We approached the SSRB authorities to defer the exams but they did not pay any heed,” they said.

An official in SSRB said that they had already notified the schedule for the examination and would go ahead with it.

“We have set up more than 20 exam centres for the candidates and the exam will be held on different days with two shifts each day. This way, there will be no rush of students in exam centres,” the SSRB official said.

He said symptomatic candidates would be properly provided isolated space to write their exams.

“It is only a one-day exam. So, the candidates won’t face any inconvenience,” the official said.

SSRB Chairman Khalid Jehangir told Greater Kashmir that they would follow all precautions to conduct the exam.

“We will go ahead with the already notified schedule for the exam but all precautions and COVID SoPs will be followed to avoid the spread of the virus,” he said.