Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister A. Revanth Reddy’s announcement that he is contemplating a judicial inquiry into the leakage of papers for government recruitment exams conducted by the Telangana State Public Service Commission has once again brought into sharp focus the unemployment crisis in the state.Reddy said he will shortly write to the high court to spare a sitting judge to oversee the probe. The promise to institute a judicial inquiry into the allegations of scams and corruption against the previous Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) government was made by the Congress in its election manifesto. While the manifesto said the probe would be taken up by a retired high court judge, Reddy went a step further, seeking a sitting high court judge to go into the affairs of the commission.The commission’s functioning has been under the scanner, with the public expressing outrage and demanding a total overhaul after question papers for government employment were repeatedly leaked.With the change of guard, the commission’s chairman B. Janardhan Reddy submitted his resignation to the Raj Bhavan when governor Tamilisai Soundararajan was away in Puducherry. The remaining five members are expected to follow suit.The entire commission’s decision to resign is perceived as an attempt at a ‘safe exit’ amidst a series of blunders in conducting recruitment exams since October last year, which led to a police investigation, protests and outcry from candidates.The resignation spree has given the new chief minister a free hand to clean up the premier recruitment agency for state services. But the panel is nervous about the governor’s next move. Soundararajan reportedly has reservations about accepting the resignation because she is keen on fixing responsibility for the lapses.The Congress rode the crest of a wave of anger by lakhs of youth who were anxiously looking for job notifications under the BRS regime.The Public Service Commission conducted exams to fill up vacancies for groups II, III and IV services but the group I notification for higher posts was not issued for several years. When the group I posts were finally notified last year, the commission received 3.8 lakh applications. But the preliminary written exam in October was cancelled after two persons working for the commission – an assistant section officer on deputation and an outsourced software professional – were found to have copied the question papers on a pen drive and sold it to candidates for a huge price.The BRS government appointed a special investigation team headed by the additional commissioner of police A.R. Srinivas to conduct a probe. The team arrested 108 accused persons, including sellers and buyers of question papers, and filed the first chargesheet in court. The second chargesheet is held up due to a delay in receipt of the forensic report.Meanwhile, the government conducted the preliminary written exam for group I once again on June 7 this year but this was again cancelled by the high court for want of biometric attendance of candidates.Thereafter, the group II exam notification was issued but it was postponed as the question paper was leaked in some other exams of the commission. The notification for the group III exam was issued but the date was not fixed while the group IV preliminary exam was taken by about 7.5 lakh candidates.In all, the commission cancelled 16 written exams for various posts in four categories comprising the groups, departments that employed assistant executive engineers, assistant engineers with diplomas and divisional accounts officers.With the recruitment process coming to a standstill, the frustration among youth waiting for employment mounted. Many of them come from rural backgrounds and lived in rented accommodation or in paying guest hostels in Hyderabad to enrol in coaching centres. After spending years waiting for notifications, they returned home disappointed. Their struggles influenced many rural voters, who felt that the BRS government was indifferent to the plight of the youth. The death by suicide of one female aspirant furthered this sentiment.During the election campaign, opposition parties, especially the Congress, reached out to the aspirants. The Congress came up with a ‘youth declaration’ that promised two lakh government jobs within one year of forming the government. All backlogs for people from SC, ST, OBC and minority communities would also be filled within a year, the party said, alongside the promise to release a ‘job calendar’ on June 2 every year to display vacancies in all departments. The Congress also promised to provide an allowance of Rs 4,000 per month to unemployed youth.Significantly, the Congress also annexed a job calendar for 2024 in group services and other departments in its election manifesto.To counter the Congress, the BRS government also assured that it would release a job calendar to fill up vacancies as and when they arose. Minister K. T. Rama Rao met the hostel inmates at Ashok Nagar in Hyderabad where a clutch of coaching centres are located to assure them of immediate steps to revive the recruitment process. He even announced that he would meet them on December 4, the day after the declaration of election results, to draw up the calendar. But, the party lost the polls.Within days of the Congress coming to power, Revanth Reddy reviewed the functioning of the Public Service Commission at an official meeting. It was on the same day that the chairman and members of the commission made public their desire to quit, apparently to facilitate the reorganisation of the commission and take steps against the guilty.A member Karem Ravinder Reddy said there was a lot of pressure on them for the past eight months though they did no wrong. This is why, he said, the members decided to quit. Another member, A. Satyanarayana, released a letter to youth saying the commission’s members spent sleepless nights after the question papers were leaked. Some vested interests wanted the abolition of the commission while some demanded the removal of individuals, he claimed. It was untenable for them to continue due to their mental agony and anguish, Satyanarayana said.The present commission, with a chairman and seven members, was constituted on May 21, 2021. Two members retired after attaining the age of retirement (62 years). In all, four member posts were vacant.Ghanta Chakrapani, a former chairman, said the abolition of the commission was not a good idea. The Congress government should instead fill up four vacancies and appoint one of them as the in-charge chairman, he suggested.