RRB NTPC 2021 Exam: Railway Minister assures to address concerns of students

Amid RRB NTPC result protests, Union Railway Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw has urged students not to take law in their hands and assured that their grievances and concerns will be addressed seriously. Addressing a press conference held in this regard on January 26, Union Railway Minister said, “I request students not to take the law into their hands. We will seriously address the grievances and concerns raised by them.” In the press conference, he also talked about students’ protest against alleged irregularities in Non-Technical Popular Categories exams.

The Railway Minister said, “A high-level committee has been formed with senior officials to examine the grievances and concerns raised by students. I request students to submit their grievances to committee formally and we will tackle it with sensitively. Candidates can submit their grievances till February 16. After examining the concerns, the committee will submit its report by March 4. We will try to finalise things as soon as possible before March 4 depending on the number of representations by submitted candidates. The committee will examine the grievances of those who have passed the exams under different railway recruitment boards (RRBs) and those who have failed the same.”

Check here official notice-https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1793323

Check here official notice-http://www.rrbajmer.gov.in/Upload_PDF/637788019006503471.pdf

The Minister added that the all Railway Recruitment Board chairmans have been asked to listen to the concerns of students, compile them and send them to the committee. An email address has been set up for this purpose. The committee will go to different parts of the country and listen to grievances. Chief Ministers of different states where the protests are going on are working sensitively and we are in touch with them.

Regarding conducting RRB Group D exam in two stages, the Railway Minister said, “Around 1.25 crore candidates have applied for the exam and if the recruitment has to be done in a bigger level then conducting only single-stage CBT becomes difficult. Even then we will re-examine this. Due to large number of applications only, it has been decided to conduct the exam in two stages. This was already mentioned in the official notice that if required two stage CBTs might be conducted.”

When asked about why graduates have been allowed in 10+2 level, the Minister said, “In any exam there is minimum educational qualification standard and not maximum qualification standard. As per constitutional rule, we can prescribe minimum qualification and not maximum. If any graduate candidate applies for the posts that were advertised for 10+2 level, we don’t have the right to stop them from applying.”

Regarding the delay in conducting both the exams, Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “In both the exams we have received more than 1 crore applications. As the applications were large it took us time of nearly six months to hire the agency for conducting both the exams. Naturally to conduct the exams at a large scale it becomes challenging. It is a himalayan task and very challenging task. Once the agency was selected then COVID-19 pandemic came in. Due to COVID-19 pandemic the exams got delayed. Despite that also the RRB NTPC examination process started in December 2020. Even in the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic, the exams were conducted with all the precautions and safety. In RRB Group D, there were around five lakh applicants whose photographs were invalid. Naturally, if the photographs of candidates are not valid then how will we allow them for the exam. Immediately after administrative tribunal has announced its decision, we have started with the examination process without any delay.”

Talking about the shortlisting process, the Railway Minister has said, “Till 2015, based on the preliminary exam/CBT 1, candidates 10 times the number of vacancies were selected for the second stage. After 2015, the number of candidates to be selected for the second stage has been increased 15 times so that more candidates can appear for second stage. In 2019, the number of candidates to be selected for the second stage has been increased to 20 times with the intend of allowing maximum candidates to appear in the exam. This is approach of ours is pro-student/pro-candidate. We are working with fair and transparency. There is no paper leak issue or manipulation issue, the issue is only how many candidates are to be shortlisted. We will solve this issue very sensitively and for the favour of students.

 “We have taking the concerns of students into consideration from the first day itself. The selection of candidates have been done as per the process given in the notice. Candidates have been selected exactly 20 times the number of vacancies in each level-2,3,4,5 and 6. The concerns raised by students regarding the shortlisting process will be handled by us sensitively,” the Minister further added.

Railway Ministry has stayed the RRB NTPC and RRB Group D exams amid the rising students protests.

A passenger train was set on fire and another was attacked with stones in Bihar by students. In Sitamarhi, police fired in the air to disperse angry demonstrators at the railway station. Protests were also reported from Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh over alleged irregularities in RRB NTPC exam.

\In Jehanabad town, angry students burned an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on railway tracks and raised slogans against the government. RRB NTPC protests have affected several sections of the East Central Railway (ECR) zone and have hit more than 25 trains. The canceled trains include the Durg-Rajendra Nagar South Bihar Express, the Gaya-Jamalpur passenger, Gaya-Howrah Express and Patna-Varanasi Express trains. Several other trains had to be diverted.

Amid rising protests, Railway Ministry issued a statement warning candidates of lifetime debarment from railway jobs.

Read More:

• RRB NTPC exam put on hold by Indian Railways

• RRB NTPC 2021 Result Protests: RRBs warn candidates of lifetime debarrment from rail jobs

• RRB NTPC 2021 Exam: Students protest against result, block railway tracks in several parts