'We get lathi-charged, you celebrate Guinness': SSC Steno candidates feel 'betrayed again'

Despite the ongoing protests against the gross mismanagement in the SSC Junior Engineer (SSC JE), Combined Graduate Level (SSC CGL), and Selection Post-13 exams, candidates who are appearing for the SSC Stenographer exam 2025 have brought to light the same issues. From technical glitches to out-of-syllabus questions, students say the SSC has once again ‘betrayed’ them.

More than 3.50 lakh candidates have registered for the SSC Stenographer exam 2025, which is being conducted as a computer-based test (CBT) at 157 centres across 85 cities. The exam started on August 6 and will continue until August 8.

A day before the exam, the commission said that 79% of candidates had been allotted an exam centre of their first, second, or third preferences. The average distance between the applicants’ address and the exam city allocated for the remaining candidates is roughly 220 kilometers. Travelling about 220 kilometers in India can take around 4 to 7 hours.

SSC Stenographer Grade C, D exam is conducted for a total of 1,590 vacancies, of which, 230 are earmarked for Group C and 1,360 for Group D exams.

SSC mismanagement

“The glitches that were in Phase-13 were just a trailer. In SSC Steno 2025, the full spectacle has been released! Out-of-syllabus questions, late entry at centers, management failure! The teachers went to meet the chairman, and they were handed ‘assurances’—nothing changed in the name of improvement!,” an aspirant wrote on X.

“We’re standing right where we started,” another wrote, while hashtags like #SSCVendorFailure and #SSCMisManagement is still trending on social media.

Sharing an image of the SSC exam centre, a candidate wrote on X: “World-class #Eduquity Center !! VIP facilities are available for leaders, but in contrast, for the educated children of poor farmers and laborers, arrangements for Exam Centers and movements for a transparent process are required.”

SSC Stenographer 2025 allegations

SSC aspirants have highlighted the following mismanagement in SSC Stenographer exam.

• Far-off exam centres.
• Candidates were made to wait for 8 hours!
• Late entry at the exam centre
• The SSC question paper had out-of-syllabus questions.
• Invigilators allegedly wrote the exam themselves.

The anger spilled over social media posts, with several videos of candidates at the exam centre going viral. A large number of aspirants were seen waiting outside the exam centre while talking to the reporters about the delays and being denied entry.

The SSC Steno syllabus does not include mathematics, but the question paper had 9 to 10 maths questions out of 50. Candidates alleged that the officials at the centres were laughing when they were panicking.

It was because of the same fear that mismanagement would spill over into other SSC exams, that the aspirants and educators staged a protest at Jantar Mantar. However, the police reportedly lathi-charged students and teachers alike causing widespread panic in the student community.

Student’s viral comment to education minister

Meanwhile, commenting on Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s post of him presenting the Guinness World Record Certificate for ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha’ to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a student posted:

“Hey sir, which exam are you discussing, tell us too, we are the youth of this country, we are getting beaten with sticks and batons for demanding our rights from SSC, and you people are saying that you have given crores of jobs, what a joke you are making with us, this intoxication will be brought down by the youth in a few days.”