Civil Services examinees running from banks to ATMs on exam eve
Patna,(BiharTimes): Thousands of civil services aspirants and other examinees across the country have been running from banks to ATMs ever since November 8 announcement of prime minister Narendra Modi to demonetize Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.
On the eve of exams they had to waste hours with little or no success. BiharTimes interviewed a number of these harassed lot.
While the UPSC Mains is going to be held between December 3 and 9, 2016 the re-scheduled History-II paper of 56 to 59 Bihar Public Service Commission Mains exam took place on Sunday (November 13).
Though the exams of all the papers were held in July last the History-II paper was re-scheduled due to some technical errors.
But these examinees faced untold hardship––some of them living in hostels and lodges of Patna even ran out of money to take food. They cannot waste hours outside the bank branches or ATMs. Those coming from other states to appear in the exam are the most harassed lot as they are new to Patna and put up at any hotel or places of friends or relatives.
Take the case of Hemanshu Chandrakar, who arrived from his home state Chhattisgarh to Patna a few days before exam. Luckily he brought his ATM card along with some cash. When he heard PM’s announcement on November 8 night he was left high and dry. Yet he never thought that the situation would be so bad.
When Hemanshu,who is actually from Durg district, finally ran out of money he spent the whole day on Friday from one ATM to another between Ashok Rajpath and Kankarbagh but failed to get any money. He gave up hope and returned to the room of his friend to make preparations for exam on Sunday.
He is unable to get his return ticket booked. He told BiharTimes that after the exam on Sunday evening he would line up outside ATM. He would buy ticket through Tatkal after drawing Rs 2,000.
But he is not alone. There are hundreds in Patna who appeared in History-II exam with tension in mind that there is no money. Some of them are rushing back to Delhi after Sunday’s exam to appear in UPSC. But they had no cash in pocket.
