A top bureaucrat in Maharashtra's revenue department will conduct an inquiry into the reason behind a “technical glitch” in the TCS server that caused a two-hour delay in start of recruitment examination for "talathis" on Monday in the state, causing inconvenience to candidates, said a Cabinet minister.

IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), responsible for conducting the online test, in a statement in the morning said, “As per the technical team, there was a central hardware issue which has impacted the exam start time (9 am which was pushed to 11 am) in all the exam centres for talathi (revenue department officials) recruitment exam 2023 today.” Maharashtra Revenue Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil announced a high-level probe into the matter and expressed regret over inconvenience caused to candidates appearing for the exam.

Talking to reporters here, he said, “The additional chief secretary of the revenue department will conduct an inquiry into the reason behind the Tata Consultancy Services' server developing a technical glitch that caused major inconvenience to candidates appearing for talathi recruitment examination. The state government expresses regrets to candidates who faced inconvenience due to a delay in start of the exam.” He wondered how a technical glitch can occur in TCS system given the infotech giant has experience in conducting such examinations in the state.

“The company has informed the state government that a technical glitch in its data centre caused the problem. I wonder how such a technical glitch can develop in a company like TCS. The company has conducted recruitment exams for other state departments as well,” said the minister.

“The exam has resumed. The first session, which was supposed to start at 9 am, began at 11 am. Since then, the remaining sessions of the exam have been organised to avoid any further inconvenience,” Vikhe Patil said.

Earlier in the day, Leader of Opposition in the assembly Vijay Wadettiwar of the Congress said the state government has been "irresponsible" in handling the entire examination issue.

Wadettiwar said the state government should have opened examination centres in every district of the state. Instead, it set up only four centres in major cities, forcing aspirants to travel long distances to appear for the test.

"Candidates spent sleepless nights and arrived in cities, where the exam centres are located, today morning and found their exam was on hold,” he said.

“Such irresponsible behaviour of the state government cannot be tolerated. If a candidate gets frustrated and ends his or her life, the state government will be responsible for it. The government has not even made an alternate provision for conducting the exam,” the Congress leader said.

Meanwhile, according to a government resolution (GR), 32 per cent posts of talathis are currently vacant in the state.

The GR dated August 18 said of the total sanctioned posts of 15,744 talathis, who are Class C employees, 5,038 positions are lying vacant and the process to fill them was underway.

A talathi is a revenue department official whose job is to maintain village accounts relating to the demand and collection of land revenue, records of rights, inspect crops and boundary marks, and prepare agricultural statistics, among other duties.

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