Railway employees in Madurai division have expressed shock over the result of the internal examination for the post of goods guards in which majority of their north Indian counterparts have excelled.
Out of the 96 posts of goods guards in Southern Railway, covering Tamil Nadu, Kerala and part of Andhra Pradesh, only five candidates from Tamil Nadu have been selected.
The recruitment for promotion was based on a general departmental competitive examination conducted online by Railway Recruitment Cell, Chennai.
All those candidates who are graduates and employed as pointsmen, shunting masters and as staff in other categories were eligible for the examination which had to be conducted for a second time on technical grounds, a union leader said.
“In the examination conducted on two days a huge number of people appeared for the test,” divisional secretary of Dakshin Railway Employees Union, R. Sankaranarayanan, said.
Online examination blamed
One of the candidates from the division, who did not clear the examination, said such a “lopsided” result in the recruitment in Southern Railway where a majority of workers were from Tamil Nadu and Kerala, could happen only when the exams were conducted online. “Earlier, the scenario was different when the examination was conducted conventionally with question papers,” he said.
Madurai MP, Su. Venkatesan, said he could not reach the Chief Personnel Officer of Southern Railway to get a clarification on the issue. “That only five persons from over 3,000 candidates from Tamil Nadu could clear the examination creates a serious doubt about the conduct of examination. It gives an impression that people from southern States are being ignored in the recruitment,” he said.
Not first time
A similar controversy broke out in September 2019 when most of the candidates selected for 620 Group D posts in Madurai divison were from north India.
Then, the officials attributed it to the Centre’s reservation policy that provided 7.5% reservation for Scheduled Tribes who accounted for only 1% in Tamil Nadu while their number was higher in States like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. .
