Job aspirants have staged a protest in Indore, raising questions over a candidate getting 101.66 marks out of the total 100 due to the adoption of "normalisation" process in a Madhya Pradesh government recruitment examination.

The protesters have alleged fraud in the recruitment examination and demanded a fair inquiry.

Normalisation is a process for ensuring students are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by the difficulty of papers they write. The process involves revising the score of a student in a way that it becomes comparable with the score of another.

This becomes necessary when an examination of the same subject is held in multiple sessions, each with a different paper.

On Monday, some agitating unemployed youth gathered in front of the district collector's office and handed over a memorandum addressed to Chief Minister Mohan Yadav to an officer, as per eyewitnesses.

The memorandum said that in the joint recruitment examination 2023 (Van and Jail Recruitment Test 2023) of forest and jail departments, a candidate scored 101.66 marks out of total 100 and topped the selection list.

The result of the examination, conducted by the Bhopal-headquartered Madhya Pradesh Employees Selection Board, was declared on December 13.

After the announcement of the result, the board clarified the "process of normalisation" has been adopted in the recruitment examination as per rules, because of which candidates can get more than full marks (100) and less than zero.

A leader of the protesters, Gopal Prajapat, told reporters, "This is the first time in the state's history that a candidate has scored more than the total marks due to the normalisation process adopted in the recruitment exam. We are protesting against the unfair process of normalisation." He alleged fraud in the recruitment exam held for the posts of forest guard, field guard (executive) and jail guard (executive), and demanded a fair inquiry.

Prajapat warned that if nothing is done in the matter, job aspirants will be forced to launch a bigger agitation.

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