The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Too early to judge: official

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Wednesday, Jan 09, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Too early to judge: official

Anil Kumar Sastry

Recruitment for Group ‘D’ staff will be complete only in April

It will take three recruitment cycles to judge composition, says SWR General Manager
There will be no interview of candidates

BANGALORE: “I’ll be happy to see more candidates from Karnataka getting selected for Group D posts,” was the reaction of Praveen Kumar, general manager, South Western Railway (SWR) in response to the growing protests against the perceived injustice to Kannadigas in the recruitment to Group ‘D” posts in the railway zone.

The recruitment process was not complete, so it was premature to allege injustice to any section, Mr. Kumar said. The final selection list for 4,701 posts would be out only by April.

Minimum intervention

Mr. Kumar told The Hindu here on Tuesday that South Western Railway was going for such large scale recruitment for the first time after its formation.

The basic educational qualification was VIII standard pass. “We have ensured complete transparency and minimum human intervention in the selection process,” he said.

Around 3.5 lakh candidates had been found eligible for the physical fitness test that were being conducted at the divisional headquarters of Hubli, Bangalore and Mysore. Each day 2,500 candidates were taking the test and the process would take another 45 days.

Bangalore Divisional Railway Manager Mahesh Mangal told The Hindu that the physical fitness test – featuring 1.5 km run in six minutes — was being videographed to eliminate the possibility of impersonation by candidates and to ensure transparency.

Following this, eligible candidates would be called for an objective-type written test.

Question papers would be in four languages apart from Hindi and English, namely Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi. Answer sheets would be subject to computerised evaluation. There would be no interview, and the top scoring 4,701 candidates would be appointed following the reservation roster, Mr. Praveen Kumar said.

He said at least three recruitment cycles were required to notice changes in the manpower composition (dominated by local employees) as South Western Railway was a newly created zone.

He said the Railway Recruitment Rules did not allow for reservation for local candidates.

Low turnout

The South Western Railway expected at least 60 per cent of the candidates to whom call letters were sent would turn up for the physical test.

However, the turnout had been poor with Mysore recording just 25 per cent of eligible candidates reporting, Bangalore 30 per cent and Hubli 50 per cent. The South Western Railway would send call letters to more candidates, going up to 3,500 a day from February, Mr. Praveen Kumar said.

Although he could not give the specifics of State-wise participation of candidates, Mr. Praveen Kumar that a considerable number of candidates from Karnataka had participated in the test over the last five days.

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