Maharashtra: MPSC aspirants stage protest, want exam delayed and 258 Agri department posts added

Pune (Maharashtra) [India] August 21 : Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) aspirants in Pune demanded the inclusion of 258 posts from the Agriculture Department in the MPSC exam.
They also demanded that MPSC postpone the exam as its date, August 25, conflicts with the IBPS exam, affecting candidates appearing for both exams.
Speaking to ANI, An MPSC aspirant said, "We demand that the 258 vacancies in the Agriculture department exam should be added to the MPSC exam IBPS exam is overlapping with the exam on August 25th."
Another aspirant listed out the demands to ANI, "The exam on 25th August is overlapping with the IBPS exam. Our first demand is that the MPSC exam should be postponed. Our second demand is that 258 posts in the Agriculture Department exam should also be added to this," he said.
The MPSC aspirant staged a protest on Tuesday night where they demanded the same. In a notification, MPSC said that they could not include the newly requested Agricultural Services posts in the upcoming exam due to timing issues.
"The Commission has received the demand letter dated 16th August 2024 for a total of 258 posts in Maharashtra Agricultural Service Group-A and Group-B cadre. According to the examination scheme released by the Maharashtra Public Service Commission on 29th December 2023, it is mentioned that the posts in Maharashtra Agricultural Service will be filled through the Maharashtra Gazetted Civil Services Combined Examination. However, as the demand letter for the Maharashtra Agricultural Service Examination 2024 was not received by the Commission till the publication of the advertisement on 29th December 2023 regarding the said examination, it was not possible to include the posts in the said Agricultural Service in the advertisement," the notification said.
The notification further stated, "Maharashtra Gazetted Civil Services Combined Preliminary Exam 2024 is being conducted on 25th August 2024 and currently all the preliminaries related to the present exam have been completed. Since it is not possible to include the posts in the Agricultural Service in the present examination, further planning will be done as soon as possible regarding the recruitment process for the posts in the requisition letter received in the Maharashtra Agricultural Service."