Nitish explains crisis, RSS floats pet theory

When Railway Minister Nitish Kumar announced 20,000 vacancies in the Group D category — involving heavy manual labour — he probabl...

When Railway Minister Nitish Kumar announced 20,000 vacancies in the Group D category — involving heavy manual labour — he probably didn’t foresee that nearly one per cent of the country’s population will clamour for them.

He had some explaining to do this evening when Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee summoned him and asked uncomfortable questions on the ongoing railway recruitment. This is the first Group D recruitment being done by the railways in 15 years and the first ever through the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB). Recruitments in this category had been frozen, following the Government’s policy of downsizing.

	WAITLISTED

			• Vacancies: 20,000 • Applications: 75 lakh • Valid applications: 55 lakh • Minimum qualification: Class VIII • Applicants’ degrees: MA, LL.B, MBA etc. • Salary: Rs 5,000 + medical + free rail passes

The railways received 75 lakh applications, of which 20 lakh were rejected. Of the 20,000 vacancies, over 3,000 were for the East Central Zone at Hajipur, comprising most of Bihar, and 2,750 for the North-East Frontier Railway, headquartered at Guwahati.

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‘‘One can understand the minister’s logic in getting Cabinet clearance for filling up safety-related posts, but not the piling of dates for holding examinations at various centres. If the exams were held on the same dates everywhere, the problem would not have arisen,’’ an official said.

According to him, the dates were set to give candidates a chance to take the examination from different centres. The list of dates fixed for tests by various RRBs is telling. Dates for the Patna RRB were set in the end — December 21, 28 and January 4. The schedule would have given ample time for Patna candidates to travel to various centres, including Guwahati, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Ranchi or even Secunderabad. ‘‘Experience shows generally it’s people from Bihar who travel to other centres to appear for exams,’’ he said.

Earlier, recruitments to Group D were done at the zonal general manager level. ‘‘Applications were called in at the local level and registration in the Employment Exchange was one of the requirements,’’ an official said.

However, several applicants went to court, alleging discrimination. ‘‘There were complaints that employment exchanges were not registering applicants from other states. The apex court then stepped in, saying on the Constitutional principal of equal opportunity, candidates from other states must not be left out,’’ he added.