SSC GD exam canceled in Kanpur after overcrowding sparks chaos at test center

The SSC General Duty (GD) examination scheduled at a Kanpur center was canceled after admit cards were reportedly issued to nearly twice the venue’s seating capacity, triggering confusion and protests among candidates.

The disruption took place at Shrimati Ramkali Iqbal Bahadur Online Centre in Purwamir during the second shift of the examination conducted on May 25.

While the center had a seating capacity of 399 candidates, around 819 aspirants reportedly arrived with valid admit cards for the same shift.

Officials said the situation spiraled after more than 360 candidates had already entered the premises and authorities realized there was no capacity left to accommodate the remaining students.

Administrative officials and senior authorities later intervened to manage the crowd and hold discussions with candidates.

Following the incident, the Staff Selection Commission canceled the examination conducted at the center and assured candidates that a fresh date would soon be announced through the official website or via email.

The SSC GD examination is one of the country’s largest recruitment tests and is conducted annually for recruitment to Constable (General Duty) posts in multiple central armed police forces and security organizations.

This year’s recruitment drive aims to fill 25,487 vacancies across different forces, including 616 posts in the Border Security Force (BSF), 14,595 in the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), 5,490 in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), 1,764 in the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), 1,293 in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), 1,706 in Assam Rifles, and 23 in the Secretariat Security Force (SSF).

The incident comes amid growing scrutiny over disruptions reported at several SSC examination centers in Uttar Pradesh during the ongoing recruitment process.

SSC Chairman S Gopalakrishnan acknowledged “mismanagement” and overcrowding at certain centers while clarifying that there had been “no paper leak” in the examination.

According to the chairman, the SSC GD recruitment examination is being conducted for nearly 46 lakh candidates nationwide from April 30 to May 31 in three shifts daily.

"The biggest threats for our exams are remote answering and technical hacks," the SSC chairman said.

He said that authorities had detected suspicious technical activity during the examination process, forcing several computer terminals to be shut down as a precautionary measure.

According to officials, the shutdown of multiple “safe” terminals reduced seating availability at some centers and led to the rescheduling of thousands of candidates within a short timeframe, ultimately resulting in overcrowding and confusion.

A similar disruption was earlier reported at a center in Prayagraj, where chaos erupted after candidates waiting outside allegedly entered the premises amid delays in the examination process. SSC later canceled and rescheduled the exam at that venue as well.

The chairman estimated that fewer than 3,000 candidates had been affected across the problematic centers and said all impacted students would be accommodated before the examination cycle concludes on May 31.

Admitting administrative lapses, Gopalakrishnan said, "I want to call it mismanagement or mishandling."

He explained that rescheduled candidates had been compressed into two days instead of being distributed across a longer schedule, which intensified crowding at certain locations.

The SSC chairman also said both the Commission and the private agency handling the examinations shared responsibility for the disruptions.

He added that penalties would be imposed on the examination agency under service-level agreement provisions for canceled or rescheduled examinations.

The chairman also revealed that hacking attempts occur "every day" during online examinations.

However, he claimed that the system usually detects suspicious external access attempts automatically and either shuts down the terminal or shifts candidates to alternate systems.

Despite the controversy, SSC maintained that the issue was limited to only a few centers in Uttar Pradesh and said nearly 250 examination venues across the country had conducted the recruitment test without disruption.

The Commission is also considering removing the problematic Prayagraj center from the remaining examination schedule to avoid further complications during upcoming shifts.